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COJenRiGHT DEPo&m 



Little Journeys to Parnassus 



Not to know me argues yourselves unknown, 
The lowest of your throng. 

—MILTON, Paradise Lost, Bk. iv., L830. 



Little 
JOURNEYS TO PARNASSUS 

By 

Thomas Speed Mosby 



Laudator temporis acti 



PUBLISHED BY 

MESSAGE PUBLISHING CO. 

JEFFERSON CITY MISSOURI 



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A^"^ 



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Copyright, 1921, T. S. Mosby. 



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Mil. 'b lb 2 1 



/^'vo I 



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INTRODUCTION. 



No volume with which the author is acquainted has here- 
tofore attempted to present in abbreviated form a critical 
survey, however imperfect, of the classical periods of the seven 
great literatures of the world, and he is persuaded that no such 
work exists. The need of such a work is apparent to all who 
have sought to gain, in a brief period of time, even a slight 
acquaintance with many of the literatures mentioned. This 
desideratum the present volume, it is hoped, may in some 
measure supply. It will be noted, moreover, that the grouping 
of the subjects herein treated will facilitate comparison and 
contrast, and thus enable the student to arrive at a more ac- 
curate knowledge of the relative merits of an author than he 
might have obtained from an entire volume on a single subject. 

In every instance the attempt has been made to portray 
the character faithfully and intimately, however brief the 
sketch. Thus we say of Horace that he "has been the loved 
companion of literary men for twenty centuries. In the phil- 
osophy of amicability he stands without a peer. His striking 
features are humanness and modernity. Always he is the 
speaking friend at elbow, varying quip and jest with solemn 
admonition," etc. With all deference to the opinions of others, 
it is respectfully submitted that a volume of critical essays 
upon the Ars Poetica and the Odes could scarcely afford a 
more accurate view of Horace. Wherever it has been thought 
necessary or advisable the better to elucidate the subject, the 
world's greatest authorities in literary criticism have been 
quoted. Conspicuous instances are the essays on Byron and 
Goethe. Indeed, it is believed there is no other work of the 
kind so rich in quotations of that sort. The reader will par- 
don, let it be hoped, any disposition to exaggerate the value 
of this feature of the work. To the author it has appeared to 
be of the very highest importance. 

This work is not primarily designed for use as a textbook 
in the schools. But for the purposes of supplemental reading, 

(V) 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

and as a work of reference, it should be found invaluable as an 
aid to students and literary workers. For these reasons it has 
been officially adopted for the Pupils' Reading Circle in the 
public schools of the State of Missouri. For these purposes 
the general index at the end of this volume will add materially 
to its value. 

In the seventy essays herewith submitted it has been 
necessary to omit much of interest and value. But if the au- 
thor has succeeded in his purpose, the reader will delve more 
deeply into the rich mines of which these fragments are but 
specimen ores. In a time so largely given to material pursuits 
it may profit us to remember that some old things are true. 
Times change, but the eternal verities abide. There are 
truths which age cannot crumble, beauties which time cannot 
efface. The good and true remain. Nothing else really 
matters. Out of the chrysalis of things that are dead new 
beauties bloom, in perpetual kinship with the glory and the 
dream we thought no more. The rainbow fades, but its colors 
reappear in a myriad of living forms, in an area bounded only 
by the limits of the sun. 

It was Samuel Johnson who said: "That man is little 
to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the 
plain of Marathon or whose piety would not grow warmer 
among the ruins of lona." Nor is he more to be envied whose 
mind cannot draw new light from the olden, golden truths 
that loom like distant stars in the horizon of the soul. 

Hence these little journeys to the mount of inspiration. 
For those whose busy days will not permit a more extensive 
acquaintance with the great minds of the past the following 
essays may serve at least to beguile the tedium of a leisure 
hour; or perhaps as an introduction, faintly, but none the less 
faithfully, it is hoped, shadowing forth the outhnes of those 
beauties which were not born to die, and which have in every 
age enriched the soul of man. 

THOS. SPEED MOSBY. 

Jefferson City, Missouri, July 28, 1921. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction. 

Chapter. Part One— GREAT ROMAN AUTHORS. Page 

I. Livy 1 

II. Horace 4 

III. Virgil 7 

IV. Lucan 10 

V. Ovid 12 

VI. Lucretius . . . . , 15 

VII. Plautus 18 

VIII. Marcus Aureiius 20 

IX. Sallust 23 

X. Quintilian 26 

Part Two— GREAT GREEK AUTHORS. 

I. Aeschylus 29 

II. Aristotle 32 

III. Euripides 35 

IV. Homer 38 

V. Plato 42 

VI. Plutarch 46 

VII. Menander 49 

VIII. PindaP 53 

IX. Anacreon 56 

X. Theocritus 60 

Part Three— GREAT ITALIAN AUTHORS. 

I. Dante 63 

II. Petrarch 68 

III. Boccaccio 72 

IV. Tasso 75 

V. Ariosto 80 

VI. Boiardo 83 

VII. Michelangelo 86 

VIII. Machiavelli 90 

IX. Metastasio 94 

X. Alfieri . 97 

Part Four— GREAT SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE AUTHORS. 

I. Lope de Vega 101 

II. Cervantes 107 

III. Camoens 112 

IV. Quevedo 115 

(vii) 



viii CONTENTS, 

Chapter. Page 

V. The Argensolas 118 

VI. Villegas 120 

VII. Montalvo 122 

VIII. Guillen de Castro 125 

IX. Vicente 128 

X. Calderon 131 

Part Five— GREAT FRENCH AUTHORS. 

I. Montaigne 135 

II. Rabelais 139 

III. Fenelon 143 

IV. Montesquieu 146 

V. Corneille 149 

VI. Racine 152 

VII. Moliere 155 

VIII. La Fontaine 158 

IX. Voltaire 160 

X. Hugo 164 

Part Six— GREAT GERMAN AUTHORS. 

I. Goethe 169 

II. Schiller 175 

III. Lessing 180 

IV. Kant 183 

V. Richter 187 

VI. Klopstock 190 

VII. Wieland 194 

VIII. Herder 197 

IX. Heine 200 

X. Weber 204 

Part Seven— GREAT BRITISH AUTHORS. 

I. Shakespeare 209 

II. Spenser 215 

III. Milton 219 

IV. Addison 224 

V. Pope 228 

VI. Byron 233 

VII. Scott 239 

VIII. Wordsworth 243 

IX. Dickens • • 248 

X. Tennyson 255 

Index 265 



PART ONE 

GREAT ROMAN AUTHORS 



I. LIVY. 

II. HORACE. 

III. VIRGIL. 

IV. LUCAN. 

V. OVID. 

VI. LUCRETIUS. 

VII. PLAUTUS. 

VIIL MARCUS AURELIUS. 

IX. SALLUST. 

X. QUINTILIAN. 



Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! 
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
Lone mother of dead empires. 

—BYRON, "Cihilde Harold," Canto iv. St. 78. 



I. 

LIVY. 

In the monastery of Justina (anciently the temple of Juno) 
at Rome, in the year 1413, there was discovered a monument bear- 
-ing the following inscription: "Th^i bones of Titus Livius, of 
Padua, a man worthy to be approved of all mankind; by whose 
almost invincible pen the acts and exploits of the Romans were 
written." 

Never was epitaph more true, and never was funereal inscrip- 
tion more generally or justly acceptea as truth throughout all 
subsequent history. 

Born fifty-eight years before the Christian era, Li\T moved 
amidst the literary glamour and imperial blazonry of that Augus- 
tan Age of which he was himself an ornament so splendid and a 
type so pure. The personal friend of one emperor and the pre- 
ceptor of another, history ^^ith one voice acclaims him among the 
greatest of the Romans. Tacitus and the younger Pliny bear 
v.dtness to the exalted esteem in which he was held. 

Livy was the friend of Augustus Caesar, who employed him 
as tutor of his grandson Claudius, who later became emperor. 
But there is no record of any attempt upon the part of Livy to 
leap a financial profit 'from his high connections. All his spare 
time was employed in writing his great history of Rome, a work 
to which he had dedicated his life, and from which he never 
swerved until his vast labors were completed. 

Livy's history of Rome comprised one hundred anci forty-two 
books. He did not long sunive the completion of his gigantic 
task, and died at the age of seventy -five years. 

But thirty-five of the one hundred and forty-two books of 
Livy have come do^^m to us. ''What a school of public and private 
virtue had been opened to us at the resurrection of learning,'' ex- 
claims Lord Bolingbroke, "if the later historians of the Roman 
commonwealth and the first of the succeeding monarchy, had 



2 LIVY 

come down to us entire. The few that are come down, though 
broken and imperfect, compose the best body of history we have ; 
nay, the only body of ancient history which deserves to be an ob- 
ject of study. Appian, Dion Cassius, nay, even Plutarch included, 
make us but poor amends for what is lost of Livy." 

It has been most truly remarked of the clear, elegant and 
Ijcid style of Livy, that he could be labored without affectation; 
diffusive without tediousness; and argumentative without pedan« 
try. And if history is indeed philosophy teaching by examples, 
we lose none of its moral values in the fervent glow of Livy*s 
m-atchless periods. In proof of this v^e need but a single specimen 
of his lofty style. Let us take it from the first book of his his- 
tory: 

"To the following considerations I wish every one seriously 
and earnestly to attend ; by what kind of men, and by what sort 
of conduct, in peace and war, the empire has been both acquired 
and extended; then, as discipline gradually declined, let him fol- 
low in his thought the structure of ancient morals, at first, as it 
were, leaning aside, then sinking farther and farther, then be- 
ginning to fall precipitate, until he arrives at the present times, 
when our vices have, attained to such a height of enormity that 
we can no longer endure either the burden of them or the sharp- 
ness of the necessary remedies. This is the great advantage to 
be derived from the study of history; indeed the only one which 
can make it answer any profitable and salutary purpose ; for, be- 
ing abundantly furnished with clear and distinct examples of 
every kind of conduct, we may select for ourselves, and for the 
state to which we belong, such as are worthy of imitation; and 
carefully noting such as, being dishonorable in their principles are 
equally so in their effects, learn to avoid them." 

When we accept history in the sense expressed by this great 
Roman, we may more fully grasp the truth of Bacon's observation 
that "histories make men wise ;" and the more we study the com- 
paratively small portion of Livy that has been transmitted to our 
times, the more we feel inclined to lament, with Bolingbroke, the 
loss of the greater portion. Livy never strains a point to make 
an epigram; but in the course of his works we find him, in the 



LIVY 3 

heat of composition, throwing off, like sparks from an anvil, such 
glowing thoughts as these: 

"Men are seldom blessed with good sense and good fortune 
nt the same time." 

**What is honorable is also safest.'' 

"No wickedness has any ground of reason." 

"Treachery, though at first very cautious, in the end betrays 
itself." 

"Prosperity engenders sloth." 

"Experience is the teacher of fools." 

"As soon as woman begins to be ashamed of what she ought 
not, she will not be ashamed of what she ought." 



11. 

HORACE. 

At the little town of Venusia, in the year 63 B. C, was born 
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the greatest lyrical poet of Rome. 
While finishing his education at Athens, Horace made the ac- 
quaintance of Brutus, then on his march to Macedonia, following 
the assassination of Julius Caesar. The poet was then only in 
his twenty-third year, but was made a staff officer in the army 
of Brutus, whose fortunes he followed to the ill-starred field of 
Philippi. Returning to Italy only to find his estates confiscated^ 
he betook himself to the imperial city, and in that world-metropo- 
lis his literary genius soon gained the acquaintance and friend- 
ship of the poet Virgil, who in turn presented him to Maecenas, 
the court politician and patron of letters, who thereafter became 
the poet's life-long friend. Through Maecenas, Horace met the 
emperor, Augustus, with whom, for the remainder of his life, he 
lived upon terms of closest intimacy. 

Upon one occasion the emperor upbraided his poetic friend 
for having never mentioned him in his odes and epistles. "I am 
angry with you," he wrote to Horace, "because you do not espe- 
cially choose me to converse with in the principal part of your 
writings of this nature. Do you fear lest the appearance of my 
intimacy should injure you with posterity?'' To this genial and 
complimentary rebuke Horace made fitting response in the first 
epistle of his second book. 

Augustus Caesar was quite fond of both Horace and Virgil, 
and often, it is related, while sitting at his meals, with Virgil at 
his right hand and Horace at his left, the emperor made a jest 
of Virgil's shortness of breath and Horace's watery eyes by ob- 
iserving that he sat between sighs and tears. 

Philip Francis has summarized the views of the critics of all 
ages, in the statement that Horace **has united in his lyric poetry 
the enthusiasm of Pindar, the majesty of Alcaeus, the tenderness 
of Sappho and the charming levities of Anacreon." But he is 

4 



HORACE 5 

Tieither so gross as Anacreon nor so sensual as Sappho. Likewise 
it may be said that he is bold without blustering, and majestic 
without austerity. His strength is in his unfailing delicacy of 
poise, his limpid utterance, his translucent phrase, his wholesome 
sanity, his bewitching simplicity and ease. In the precise and 
c}iiselled elegance of his diction the excellence of his work is sur- 
passed by none, and is approximated by no modern lyric bard in 
our language with the possible exception of Thomas Gray, while 
the charming urbanity and flowing sweetness of his mild ironic 
humor find no modern counterpart save in the essays of Joseph 
Addison. A great author, in relation to his readers, may be 
viewed as master, mentor or companion. Horace has been the 
loved companion of educated men for twenty centuries. In the 
philosophy of amicability he stands without a peer. His striking 
features are humanness and modernity. Always he is the speak- 
mg friend at elbow, varying quip and jest with solemn admonition, 
iind, even when sad, smiling through his tears, helping and hop- 
ing, but never moping, along the byways of Hfe. 

Do you remember his simple prayer? 

"Son of Latona, grant me a sound mind in a sound body, that 
I may enjoy what I possess, and not pass a dishonored old age 
without the innocent pleasures of music!" 

Much of his philosophy, we cannot doubt, he drew from the 
simple life of his Sabine farm, the gift of his friend Maecenas. 
Here, in his sylvan retreat, secure from the tumult of the busy 
capital, he learned to worship the "golden mean." Hear him: 

"The man who loves the golden mean is safe from the misery 
of a wretched hovel, and, moderate in his desires, cares not for 
ti luxurious palace, the subject of envy. The tall pine bends 
of tener to the rude blast ; lofty towers fall with a heavier crash, 
and the lightnings strike more frequently the tops of the moun- 
tains. A well-balanced mind hopes for a change when the world 
frowns, and fears its approach when it smiles. It is the same 
divine being that brings back and sends away the gloom of winter. 
Though sorrow may brood over thee just now, a change may ere 
long await thee. At times Apollo tunes his silent lyre, and is not 



6 HORACE 

always bending his bow. Be of good cheer and firm in the hour 
of adversity, and when a more favorable gale is blowing, thou wilt 
do wisely to be furling thy swelling sail." Again: 

"The man caught by a storm in the wide Aegean, when the 
moon is hid by dark clouds, and no star shines to guide him cer- 
tainly on his way, prays for ease: the Thracian, fierce in battle, 
prays for ease : the quivered Parthians pray for ease — a blessing 
not to be bought by gems, purple, nor gold. Ease is not venal; 
for it is not treasures, nor yet the enjoyment of high power, that 
can still the uneasy tumults of the soul, and drive away the cares 
that hover round the fretted ceilings of the great." 

Like other great minds of the time, Horace saw through the 
tinsel and glitter of Rome in her most glorious day the venality 
that was to destroy her. ''What are laws ?" he asks ; "vain with- 
out public virtues to enforce them." 

"Cease to admire the smoke, riches and din of Rome!" he 
exclaims. 

"The age of our parents," he writes, "worse than that of our 
grandsires, has brought us forth more impious still, and we shall 
produce more vicious progeny." 

Horace is peculiarly the poet of friendship. Only a true 
friend could say this: "He who backbites an absent friend, who 
does not defend him when he is attacked, who seeks eagerly to 
raise the senseless laugh and acquire the fame of wit, who can 
Invent an imaginary romance, who cannot keep a friend's secret ; 
that man is a scoundrel! Mark him, Roman, and avoid him." 
Many are his tributes to his friends. To him they were an indis- 
pensable condition of life. Nor did he long survive those who 
were dearest to his heart. When Virgil and Maecenas died he 
followed them within a few weeks, passing away at the age of 
fifty-seven; having, as he said of his own work, "raised a monu- 
ment more lasting than brazen statues, and higher than the royal 
pyramids, a monument which shall not be destroyed by the wast- 
ing rain, the fury of the north wind, by a countless series of years 
or the flight of ages." 



in. 

VIRGIL. 

p. Virgilius Maro, born seventy years before the Christian 
era, was, after Homer, the greatest epic poet of antiquity. He 
died September 22, B. C. 19, in the fifty-second year of his age. 

Virgil, the farmer poet, was not only a man of finished edu- 
cation, but was deeply learned in agriculture. Like Horace, his 
contemporary and friend, his estates were confiscated because of 
his early opposition to the cause of Augustus Caesar, and, like 
Horace, he received both pardon and patronage from the emperor. 
Virgil's first public employment was in connection with the royal 
^tables, because of his skill in the cure of diseases among horses. 
However, his literary genius did not remain long inactive, and he 
fsoon began the composition of his Eclogues, which created a 
literary sensation in Rome. It is in this work that the well- 
known phrase occurs, ''Love conquers all things." 

So great was the poet's popularity following this publication 
that, when some of his verses were quoted on the stage, and Virgil 
happened to be present, the entire audience rose, thus according 
to him an honor which Roman audiences gave to none but Caesar. 

The advice of Maecenas and the astounding success of his pas- 
toral poems (a field v/hich had not been theretofore attempted by 
any of the Roman poets) led him to next undertake the "Georgics," 
an agricultural poem which defies imitation. The first book of 
the "Georgics" deals with soil management, the second with tree- 
culture, the third with Hve-stock and the fourth with bee-keeping. 
This is conceded to be the most finished poem in the Latin lan- 
guage. In the opinion of Addison it is the most finished poem 
in existence, every detail being subjected to the most exquisite 
I>olish, and refined and embelhshed to the last degree. "The com- 
in onest precepts of farming,'* in the language of one critic, "are 
delivered with an elegance which could scarcely be attained by 
a poet who should endeavor to clothe in verse the sublimest max- 



S VIRGIL 

ims of philosophy." The famous motto **Labor omnia vincent — 
Labor conquers all" — is taken from this poem. 

Virgil was in his forty-fifth year when he completed the 
Georgics. He now began the "Aeneid," his last and greatest 
work, which was to occupy the remainder of his days; an epic 
poem portraying the wanderings of Aeneis, bringing Homer's 
Dliad down to Roman times, and tracing the Roman lineage to the 
Trojans ; an achievement highly flattering to imperial Rome, and 
intensely pleasing to the Roman populace. In this great poem 
Virgil brought the hexameter verse, **the stateliest measure ever 
molded by the lips of man," to its utmost perfection. The majesty 
and force of Virgil's swinging line have echoed down the ages, and 
will reverberate till time shall be no more. The martial tread, 
the onward sweep, the epic grandeur of the work, are fore- 
shadowed in the very first sentence: 

"Arms and the man I sing, v/ho, forced by Fate, 
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate. 
Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore." 

But, with all its wondrous power, with all its beauty and its 
force, the Aeneid was not perfect, and none knew it so well as 
Virgil. His keenly sensitive taste was only too conscious of the 
defects of the piece. He was subjecting the work to a most criti- 
cal revision when death ended his labors. Deeply sensible of its 
imperfections, his last request was that the Aeneid be destroyed ; 
but his will v/as thwarted by the emperor Augustus. 

Shortly before his death Virgil met the em.peror at Athens. 
Augustus Vvas returning from his Syrian conquests. He had 
vanquished his domestic enemies, and was lord of the known 
world. At this time he was considering the restoration of the 
Roman republic. Agrippa favored the idea; but Maecenas was 
for the empire. The decision, one of the most momentous in 
human history, was left to the poet. He declared for the empire, 
and Augustus followed his advice. 

Virgil, though a deep scholar, was unpretentious in his man- 
ner. He dressed and looked like a farmer. He was modest to 
the point of timidity. He shunned publicity, and was visibly 



VIRGIL 9 

embarrassed by praise. Although the habit of mutual attack and 
recrimination was common enough among Roman writers of the 
time, they appear to have been unanimous in their esteem for 
Virgil, and his rise to fame was attended by very little of the 
jealousy that is frequently engendered upon such occasions. He 
was never in love and was never married. His private life was 
as beautiful and chaste as the lines he wrote. But he does not, 
*n any of his poems, depict the character of one good woman. 

In one particular the fame of Virgil will forever remain 
unique among the world's great poets. A superstitious reverence 
has encircled his name. For hundreds of years he was regarded 
as a kind of supernatural being, endowed with magic pov/er and 
"^Aisdom. There was long prevalent a tradition that his mother 
was a virgin. For centuries there was a custom of "telling one's 
fortune" by opening the ''Aeneid" and noting the first line to 
meet the eye. In the middle ages it was attempted to be shown, 
from the Eclogues, that Virgil predicted the coming of Christ. In 
ancient times pilgrimages were made to his tomb, and his image 
was set up in the heathen temples of Rome. In consideration of 
all which one can only say with Boswell, 

''Was ever poet so trusted before!" 



LUCAN. 

After Homer and Virgil, the next great epic poet of ancient 
limes is Lucan. This is the opinion of no less distinguished a 
eritic than Dr. Hugh Blair, the prince of English rhetoricians. 
The same authority assures us, moreover, that Lucan was the 
most philosophical and the most public-spirited poet of all an- 
tiquity. These opinions, it is believed, fairly reflect the judgment 
©f modern criticism, notwithstanding the particular faults pointed 
0?it hy the German savant Dr. Niebuhr, by Dr. Blair, and others. 

Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) , the principal Roman poet 
t : the so-called ''Silver Age," was born in Spain, 38 A. D., where 
his father had amassed a fortune as a farmer of the Roman 
revenues. The elder Lucan was a younger brother of Seneca, the 
philosopher. The poet in his infancy was brought to Rome, where 
lie became a school-mate of Persius, and a friend of Emperor Nero. 
Brought up in an atmosphere of culture, surrounded by the oppor- 
liE^nities of boundless wealth and the refinements of social position, 
imt forth by genius and upheld by power, Lucan entered with zest 
^iTkd promise upon the brilliant career which the Roman capital 
offered to men of his type and talent. A favorite of the emperor, 
he advanced quickly in the public service. He became quaestor 
and augur. A man of popular manners and a poet of great power, 
he rose rapidly in the public esteem. His public recitations and 
declamations met with increasingly great applause. His fame 
siroused the envy of Nero, and the emperor's vindictive jealousy 
soon made his condition so intolerable that he joined in a plot 
against the tyrant's life. He was discovered, and ordered to his 
destth, at the age of twenty-seven, after vainly seeking to excul- 
pate himself by the infamy of a cowardly confession, implicating 
Iiis mother in the plot. 

Strange it was, but true, that Lucan, child of luxury and 
liabitue of the court of Nero, should become a lover of liberty and 
s champion of democracy. Yet such he was. 

10 



LUCAN 11 

The 'Tharsalia/' a poem in ten books, is the only work of his 
now extent. That work is an epic of democracy, and will forever 
remain a part of the well remembered literature of the world. It 
narrates in epic form the civil wars of Pompey and Caesar, and 
recounts the overthrow of Roman liberty. It was the hostility 
to Caesarism displayed in this book which, in all probability, first 
drew forth the ire of Nero. The poem has been a favorite with 
tlie lovers of political freedom in all succeeding ages. It was 
especially popular with the republicans of Europe during the *'Age 
of Revolutions." Some of the speeches of Cato, particularly, in 
this poem, for moral subhmity are unsurpassed in the annals ol 
antiquity. 

Lucan lacks tenderness and is deficient in elegance and purity 
of style, when compared with Virgil; nor is the epic structure of 
his work to be compared with that great master; but the stoic 
t)hilosophy that breathes through the poem, the nobility of senti- 
^iient, and the glowing fires of freedom that gleam throughout 
the piece will hold its fame secure. Som.e of his epigrams are 
]nost striking, as when he says, in book V, "Those whom guilt 
stains it equals ;" or, in book VII, "Neither side is guiltless if its 
adversary is appointed judge." His saying that "The chieftains 
contend only for their places of burial" suggests the line of Gray: 

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 
Another of his f amyous aphorisms is this : "He v/ho rules will ever 
be impatient of a partner." His keen insight into the origin of 
popular upheavals may be shown by a single line: "For it is 
famine alone that confers freedom on cities; a starving populace 
knows no fear." And Hkewise, in book I, where he says : "He 
who refuses what is just, gives up everything to him who is 
armed." 



V. 
OVID. 

One of the great poets of the time of Augustus was Ovid 
iPublius Ovidius Naso) who lived contemporaneously with Livy, 
Horace and Virgil. He was born B. C. 43, and died A. D. 18. 

Ovid was of an ancient equestrian family, and like other 
young Roman nobles of the time he finished his education at 
Athens. He was trained for the bar, but the pursuits of litera- 
t\>re early engrossed his attention, and he is not known to have 
practiced law. Unlike his great contemporaries in literature, he 
led a proiiigate life. He was divorced twice and married three 
times before his thirtieth year. At one time he numbered the 
Emperor Augustus among his personal friends; but, because of 
h\B licentious practices he was banished from Rome in the fiftieth 
J ear of his age, in the same year that Horace died. The seat 
of his exile was the little town of Tomi near the mouth of the 
Danube, on the Black sea, where he spent the remaining ten years 
of his life. He appears to have so conducted himself as to win 
the sincere love of the people of Tomi. 

A number of beautiful poems were written during the period 
Tf his exile (among them the Epistolae Ex Ponto and the Tris- 
tium) v/liich generally bewail his banishment and entreat the 
mercies of Augustus, but to all such appeals the emperor re- 
mained obdurate. The precise reason for the poet's exile may 
; ever be known. The cause specified was the publication of the 
*'Ars Amatoria ;" but this was merely a specious pretext, because 
the poem complained of had been published ten years before and 
had been in general circulation ever since. Historians have 
therefore indulged the plausible conjecture that Augustus took 
personal offense at some of the licentious acts of the poet; 
although many of the love poems of Ovid were by no means cal- 
culated to improve the moral status of a none too decorous public. 

The poet seems to have realized his own moral instability, 

12 



OVID 13 

He was weak, and he paid the price. How truly he exclaimed, in 
the greatest of his poems: 

"I see the right, and I approve it, too, 
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.** 
And again, in the same poem: 

"111 habits gather by unseen degrees. 
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." 
From Tomi he wrote : '*An evil life is a kind of death.'* Well did 
Ovid know it ! And none knew better than he the beginnings of 
evil. "Resist beginnings," he urges; "it is too late to employ 
medicine when the evil has grown strong by inveterate habit.** He 
was of a kindly and considerate nature. Most truly did he say : "I 
have lampooned no one in satirical verse, nor do my poems hold 
up any one to ridicule." He was, indeed, an enemy to none but 
himself. 

Not all of Ovid's work has come dovv'n to \ls. "Medea," a 
tragedy v/hich appears to have been very popular, is wholly lost. 
Other works have survived in whole or in part. Among the com- 
plete works he has left us is his greatest, the "Metamorphoses.** 
7. his poem, in fifteen books, was one of his later works. It is a 
literary masterpiece, well \^orthy of the golden age of Roman 
literature. The poet appears to have been fully conscious of its 
merit ; and, like Virgil and Horace upon similar occasions, he does 
not hesitate to say so. At \he close of the fifteenth book he 
exclaims: "And now I have finished a work which neither the 
wrath of Jove, nor fire, nor steel, nor all-consuming time can de- 
stroy. Welcome the day which can destroy only my physical man 
in ending my uncertain life ! In my better part I shall be raised 
t;> immortality above the lofty stars, and my name shall never 
die." 

Ovid was an early favorite in English literature. Christopher 
Marlowe translated the "Amores." The "Ars Amatoria" was 
done into English verse by Congreve and Dryden. Both Dryden 
and Addison translated the "Metamorphoses." The critics are 
all agreed that much of Ovid was known to Shakespeare. There 
are allusions to Ovid in "Much Ado About Nothing,** 11:7; "As 
You Like It," 111:3; "Taming of the Shrew," i:I; lb. iii; I; "Titus 



14 OVID 

Andronicus," iv:l; "Love's Labor's Lost," iv:2; "A Midsummer 
Night's Dream," "The Tempest," iv:7; and "Venus and Adonis." 
Shakespeare was certainly familiar with Golding's translation of 
the "Metamorphoses," printed in 1567. Old father Chaucer, too 
was familiar with the Roman poet, as witness this opening line 
from a verse in the "Merchant's Tale:" 

"0 noble Ovide, soth sayest thou, God wot," etc., 

Ovid's pleasing style, his felicity of expression and facility 
oc execution render his compositions most delightful to lovers of 
light and musical verse, while we find in him the origin of many 
common phrases, such as piling "Ossa on Pelion," "Agreeing to 
differ," "a pious fraud," "pursuits become habits," "no excellence 
without effort," etc. Some of his sayings became axiomatic, as: 

"We covet what is guarded; the very care invokes the thief. 
Few love what they can have." 

"We are always striving for things forbidden, and coveting 
those denied us." } 

"It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigor is in our 
immortal spirit." 

"God gave man an upright countenance to survey the 
heavens, and look upward to the ?tars." 

Ovid passed away one year before the death of Virgil. 



VI. ;ir 

LUCRETIUS. 

Titus Carus Lucretius, probably the greatest didactic poet 
the world has ever known, was bom B. C. 95, and died in the 
middle of the first century B. C. The exact date of his birth is 
conjectural, and little is known of his life, but his great work, 
**De Rerum Natura," a philosophic poem in six books, will live so 
long as the human voice finds utterance for the language of phi- 
losophy, and in its benign consolations the human heart finds 
peace. 

The purpose of his poem is to vindicate the freedom of 
thought, and free the human mind from the dominion of super- 
stition; a truly noble object, and magnificently essayed, even 
if hardly attained. In this great work, which is done in hexa- 
meter verse, the serene contemplations of the philosopher are 
adorned with an elegance of diction and a sweetness and harmony 
of numbers unsurpassed in the poetry of any language. 

In philosophy, Lucretius was a disciple of Epicurus. His 
work has been reviewed by many of the first minds of England, 
Germany and France. Tennyson made him the subject of a 
poem. ''Lucretius was an earnest seeker after truth," says one, 
''but it was the spirit of the typical Roman, for a definite practical 
end, the emancipation of mankind from the bondage of super- 
stition The enduring interest of the poem is thus a 

psychological one, and is due to the unconscious self-portrayal 
of one of the noblest minds in history." There are traditions of 
the poet's madness, his death by suicide, etc., but these tales are 
unsupported by historic testimony. 

While no translation can adequately present the statuesque 
dignity of his superb Latin, the following excerpts will in a 
measure suffice to illustrate his charm of thought and expres- 
sion : 

" 'Tis sweet, when the seas are roughened by violent winds, to 

15 



16 LUCRETIUS 

view on land the toils of others, not that there is pleasure in 
seeing others in distress, but because man is glad to know himself 
secure/Tis pleasant, too, to look, with no share of peril, on the 
inighty contests of war; but nothing is sweeter than to reach 
those calm unruffled temples, raised by the wisdom of philoso- 
phers, whence thou mayest look down on poor mistaken mortals, 
wandering up and down in life's devious ways, some resting their 
fame on genius, or priding themselves on birth, day and night 
toiling anxiously to rise to high fortune and sovereign power." 

One cannot but recall the same thought carried out by Milton 
In his "Comus:" 

"How charming is divine philosophy! 

Not harsh and crabb'd, as dull fools suppose; 

But musical as is Apollo's lute, 

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 

Where no rude surfeit reigns." 

Let us read further : "Why is it, man, that thou indulgest 
in excessive grief? Why shed tears that thou must die? For if 
thy past life has been one of enjoyment, and if all thy pleasures 
have not passed through thy mind as through a sieve, and van- 
ished, leaving not a rack behind, why then dost thou not, like a 
thankful guest, rise cheerfully from life's feast, and with a quiet 
mind go take thy rest." 

Lucretius never ceases to exhort against the fear of death. 
"Wilt thou then repine," he asks, "and think it a hardship to die ? 
thou for whom life is well nigh dead even v/hile thou livest and 
on joy est the light of day, who wearest away the greater part of 
thy time in sleep, who snorest waking, and ceasest not to see 
visions, and bearest about with thee a mind troubled with ground- 
less terrors, and canst not discover the cause of thy never-ending 
troubles, when, staggering, thou art oppressed on all sides with a 
multitude of cares, and reelest rudderless in unsettled thoughts." 

"0 misery of men !" he exclaims. "0 blinded fools ! in what 



> 



LUCRETIUS 17 

dark mazes, in what dangers we walk this little journey of our 
life!" 

"How wretched are the minds of men, and how blind their 
understanding !" 

One more sentence — and one to be remembered, too — and 
we take our leave of this wizard of Latinity : "Examine with judg- 
ment each opinion: if it seems true, embrace it; if false, gird up 
the loins of thy mind to withstand it." 



VII. 
PLAUTUS. 

T. Maccius Plautus was bom 254 B. C. and died after an 
active life of seventy years. He was the greatest writer of com- 
edy the Latin language has given to the world. 

The early life of Plautus was filled with hardships. At the 
age of thirty we find him earning a living by turning a hand-mill, 
grinding corn for a baker! But he was soon to furnish to the 
Romans bread of a different sort. In his leisure moments he 
composed three plays and they were instantly successful. The 
remainder of his life was devoted to producing for the stage. He 
is thought to have been the author of one hundred and thirty 
plays, only twenty of which have been transmitted to posterity. 

The plays of Plautus are distinguished for their rapid action, 
their humor and their vivacity. His popularity with the ancient 
Romans was unbounded and his plays held undisputed possession 
of the Roman stage for a period of five hundred years — a longer 
period of popularity than the fates have vouchsafed to any other 
playright in the entire course of human history. Although some 
of his plots were adapted from the Greek drama, his portrayal of 
Roman life, and of human nature, was so true as to elicit instan- 
taneous and continuous appreciation, and his work has found 
imitators among the moderns in Shakespeare, Dryden, Addison, 
Lessing and Moiiere. Both Dryden and Moliere copied his Am- 
phytrion. That Plautus was known to Shakespeare is evident 
from the specific mention of the Roman poet, in Hamlet. 

The writings of Plautus abound in more or less delicate but 
incisive thrusts at human folly, frailty and fraud. Some of his 
sayings have become axiomatic, and many a well known phrase 
finds its origin in his plays. In the fourth act of his Trinummus 
he speaks of young men "sowing their wild oats." In the same 
play we find (act IV) : "The bell never rings of itself ; unless some 
one handles or moves it, it is dumb." In the second act of this 
play we find: "He who falls in love meets a worse fate than he 
who leaps from a rock." 

18 



PLAUTUS 19 

From the Mostellaria we glean: "You little know what a 
ticklish thing it is to go to law" (Act V) ; 'To blow and swallow 
at the same moment is not easy to be done" (Act III) ; and 
"Things which you don't hope, happen more frequently than 
things which you do hope" (Act I). 

"He whom the gods love dies young," is from his Bacchides, 
act iv., but is borrowed from the Greek comic poet, Menander. . 

"Ill gotten is ill spent" is from Poenulus (act IV) , and in the 
same play (act III) we find the aphorism: "He who does not 
know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide." 

In Pseudolus he excoriates, in this fashion, the gossip and the 
slanderer : 

Act I: "Your tittle-tattlers, and those who listen to sland- 
der, by my good will should all be hanged— the former by their 
tongues, the latter by their ears." 

Act II: "Do you never look at yourself when you abuse an- 
other?" 

The same thought is pursued in his Truculentus (act I) : 
"Those who twit others with their faults should look at home." 

In his Persa the author strikes at ingratitude: "That man is 
worthless who knows how to receive a favor, but not how to re- 
turn one" (Act V). "You love a nothing when you love an in- 
grate" (Act II). 

In Trinummus (Act IV) he says: "What you lend is lost; 
when you ask for it back you may find a friend made an enemy 
by your kindness. If you begin to press him further, you have 
the choice of two things — either to lose your loan or to lose your 
friend." Shakespeare, who may have gotten here the thought, 
improved the expression in Polonius' advice to Laertes (Hamlet, 
Act I., Sc. Ill) : 

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be: 
For loan oft loses both itself and friend. 
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." 

Plautus wrote his own epitaph, and it is worthy of reproduc- 
tion as one of the truest thoughts that ever fell from his gifted 
pen: "Plautus has prepared himself for a life beyond the grave; 
the comic stage deserted weeps; laughter also, and jest and joke; 
and iwetic and prosaic will bewail his loss together." 



VIIL 
MARCUS AURELIUS. 

The pages of history record the name of but one emperor who 
was a gentleman as well as a king and who was likewise in all 
things an honest, upright and useful citizen, a profound student, 
a conscientious and diligent administrator of public affairs, and a 
man of blameless life. That man was the Roman emperor, Mar- 
cus Aurelius Antoninus, who was born A. D. 121, and died in 180. 

It was Plato who wrote, in his "Ideal Republic" : "Until philoso- 
phers are kings, and the princes of this world have the spirit and 
power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in 
one, cities will never cease from ill — no, nor the human race, as 
I believe, and then only will our state have a possibility of life, 
and see the light of day. * * * The truth is that the state in which 
the rulers are most reluctant to govern is best and most quietly 
governed, and the state in which they are most willing is the 
v/orst." 

All these conditions were met by Marcus Aurelius, and by 
no other person in the entire history of the world. He loved 
Vs^isdom for its own sake, and found virture to be its own reward. 
He was humble in high station; a statesman who detested poli- 
tics ; a soldier who despised the glamour of militarism and loathed 
its bloody trophies ; a monarch who scorned the trappings of em- 
pire, and who preserved to the last the candor of innocence, and 
the simplicity and gentleness of a child's heart. 

But he was born to troublous times. His life was filled with 
action. He knew no peace, during his reign of twenty years. 
The empire was assaulted upon the east, the west and the north, 
and torn by rebellion within. Famine, pestilence, earthquakes 
and floods added their terrors. Marcus Aurelius had little time 
for the studies he loved so well; but he acted the philosophy he 
professed, he practiced the precepts he gave, and he surmounted 
every obstacle and weathered every storm. Through all these 
manifold disasters he moved with the sweetness of an angelic 

20 



MARCUS AURELIUS 21 

spirit and the serene majesty of a master mind. When a trusted 
general revolted and was slain by subordinates, the philosopher- 
king lamented the fact that the Fates had denied him his fondest 
wish — to have freely pardoned the man who had so basely be- 
trayed his confidence; and then he caused all the correspondence 
of the rebel to be destroyed, in order that others might not be 
implicated in the treason. He was, in very truth, most blessed 
of Pagans, and noblest of the Stoics. He was, at once, a king 
among philosophers and a philosopher among kings. Well may 
they decry power and riches who possess them not. But, to pos- 
sess absolute power, yet temper justice with mercy; to possess 
unlimited wealth, and yet lead an abstemious life, active in every 
benevolent work — this is a test of character. How many Chris- 
tian monarchs are worthy to sit beside him ? 

It has been remarked that his persecution of the Christians 
is the one blot upon his fame, the stigma of his reign. It will, 
we apprehend, be time enough to rebuke the Pagan emperor for 
this when Christians cease their persecution of one another. Just 
here, however, is a lesson for the present generation. Let it be 
voiced in the words of John Stuart Mill: ''Unless anyone who 
approves of punishment for the promulgation of opinions, flatters 
himself that he is a wiser and better man than Marcus AureHus, 
more deeply versed in the wisdom of his time — more elevated in 
his intellect above it — more earnest in his search for truth — let 
him abstain from that assumption of the joint multitude, which 
the great Antoninus made with so unfortunate a result." 

Marcus Aurelius wrote but one book — his ''Meditations" — 
and it may be doubted if even this was ever intended for publica- 
tion. However, in the brief scope of this small volume we find 
the full fruition of the Stoical school of philosophy, "the gospel 
of those who do not believe in the supernatural." The funda- 
mentals of that system of thought, long since exploded, need not 
be here discussed. But for all that the little volume of "Medita- 
tions" has given strength to many. It is one of the most delight- 
ful of the Roman classics, and in its pages we may readily discern 
the friend of man. Thus, in book II: 



22 MARCUS AURELIUS 

"And since it has fallen to my share to understand the natu- 
ral beauty of a good action and the deformity of an ill one ; since 
i am satisfied the person disobliging is of kin to me, and though 
we are not just of the same flesh and blood, yet our minds are 
nearly related, both being extracted from the Deity, I am con- 
vinced that no man can do me a real injury, because no man can 
force me to misbehave myself; nor can I find it in my heart to 
hate or be angry with one of my own nature and family. For 
we are all made for mutual assistance, as the feet, the hands and 
the eyelids ; as the rows of the upper and under teeth." 

Many of his maxims should be treasured in the memory of 
the remotest posterity. There is, for example, no sounder doc- 
trine than this: 

"He that commits a fault abroad is a trespasser at home; 
and he that injures his neighbor, hurts himself." 

"Nothing," he says elsewhere, "is more scandalous than false 
friendship, and therefore, of all things, avoid it. In short, a man 
of integrity, sincerity and good nature can never be concealed, 
for his character is wrought into his countenance." 

The guiding principle of his life is summed up at the end of 
book IX, where, speaking of a good man, he says: 

"And therefore, when he does a good office, and proves serv- 
iceable to the world, he has fulfilled the end of his being, and at- 
tains his own reward." 



IX. 
SALLUST. 

Caius Sallustius Crispus, "the Roman Thucydides," was a 
Sabine, and his birthplace was Amiternum, at the foot of the 
Appenines, where he first saw the hght B. C. 86. He was one of 
the greatest oi the Roman poHticians, and was from the begin- 
ning a warm friend and advocate of JuHus Caesar. 

Sallust was elected a tribune of the people when he was 
thirty-two years of age. From this time forward his influence 
was verj' great, but his character was so wretched that two years 
later he was removed from the Senate on account of gross im- 
morality. He was out of office for four years, when through the 
influence of Caesar he was restored to his position. To all the 
schemes of that great political and mihtary genius Sallust was 
a party, and he went with Caesar to Africa in the military cam- 
paign against the party of Pompey. Having participated in that 
victorious campaign, which resulted in the total ruin of the Pom- 
peian party and the suicide of Cato, Caesar made him governor of 
an African province. He returned a very rich man. He then 
devoted the remainder of his life to literature, and died B. C. 34. 

The only works of Sallust that have come down to us are his 
two Epistles to Caesar, his history of the Jugurthine war, and 
his History of the Conspiracy of Catiline. Another book, in the 
nature of a chronicle of the events of his time, and said to have 
been in five volumes, has been lost. 

Although the remnants of his writings that have survived 
are all too brief, yet he is regarded as one of the foremost of 
ancient historians. One of his translators, the learned Dr. 
Stewart, says of this extraordinary character : 

*Terhaps there is no hterary character that has given rise 
to keener sensations of aversion or partiality, than that of Sallust ; 
no one has met with less protection from his friends, or greater 
persecution from his enemies. The earliest biographers, who 
attempted to represent him, lived in too near an age to be free 

23 



24 SALLUST 

from personal prepossessions; and of the later authors the far 
greater number have surrendered their judgment to the dog- 
matical and the arrogant; they have rather listened to declama- 
tion than inquired into facts, and have thereby been disabled 
from deciding with candor. As to Sallust, while alive, he was 
exposed to the hatred of Cicero, and the envy of Livy, and vilely 
traduced and undervalued by the latter, when he was no longer 
able to answer for himself. Even down to the present day his 
reputation is still mangled by the heated partisans of these popu- 
lar writers." 

But, whatever may have been Livy's opinions of his charac- 
ter, there is no doubt that he emulated the style of Sallust, who 
was the first of the Roman historians to adopt the rhetorical 
method of the Greeks. Some of the passages in Sallust are of 
great beauty; as this, upon the mind: 

"Personal beauty, great riches, strength of body, and all 
other things of this kind, pass away in a short time ; but the noble 
productions of the mind, like the soul itself, are immortal. In 
fine, as there is a beginning, so there is an end of the advantages 
of person and fortune; all things that rise must set, and those 
that have grown must fade away; but the mind is incorruptible, 
eternal, the governor of the hum.an race, directs and controls all 
things, overrules all things, nor is itself under the power of any." 

The following sound political axiom also comes down to us 
from Sallust: 

*'It is better for a good man to be overcome by his opponents, 
than to conquer injustice by unlawful means." This, from a 
partisan of Caesar ! 

But, in the whole range of the classics, there is nothing finer 
than this, from his First Epistle to Caesar, although, mayhap, it 
came from one who knew too well its truth: 

"There is yet," said he, "another species of reform still more 
important, namely, to eradicate from the mind the love of money ; 
ur, if that cannot be, to diminish as far as possible, its baneful 
influence. Without such a reform, what degree of prosperity can 
be enjoyed by a people, either at home or abroad, in private life 



SALLUST 25 

or in public transactions ? Where riches are idolized, the manners 
must be corrupted, the nerves of discipline relaxed, and no propi- 
tiousness of disposition can resist the allurement. Even the mind 
itself must forget its powers, and, sooner or later, sink into in- 
activity. In the pages of history" we may perceive events suf- 
ficiently demonstrative of this pernicious passion; states and 
kingdom.s, that when depraved by wealth, have lost the mighty 
empires acquired during the age of poverty and virtue. Nor, 
if we attend to its progi-ess, will such extent of its power create 
astonishment. The good man, when he sees virtue contemned, 
and vice, if possessed of wealth, approached with deference and 
honored with distinction, at first indignantly resents the prefer- 
ence and many a bitter reflection arises in his mind. But by 
degrees, the splendor of rank dazzles his fancy, and the pleasures 
of riches gain admission to his heart ; until he sinks, at last, into 
the common corruption. Where riches are worshipped, honor, 
good faith, probity, modesty and principle of every sort, are held 
as light in the balance: For there is but one path which leads to 
virtue, and that is difficult and rugged; whereas to wealth there 
are a thousand, ever open, and at the choice of its votaries. I 
beseech you, therefore, let your first care be to lower riches in the 
common estimation. Let the high offices of Consul and Praetor 
be once bestowed on real dignity, and distinguished talents, not 
en superiority of fortune, and the possession of the latter will no 
longer have power to exalt, or to depress, in the opinion of the 
world." 



X. 
QUINTILIAN. 

Quintilian — the school-master, the first to draw a salary from 
Che Roman state ; for, before his time, teaching was done by pri- 
vate instructors. The emperor Domitian established for him a 
professorship and awarded to him a handsome salary from the 
imperial treasury. Assuredly, none was more worthy of either 
the honor or the emolument. 

Marcus Fabius Quintilian was born in Spain, in the year 40 
A. D., and lived to the age of seventy-eight. He began as advo- 
cate, but soon abandoned the bar for his favorite vocation of 
teaching, which he followed the greater part of his life, instruct- 
ing the youth in the arts of speech. Martial called him "the 
supreme controller of the restless youth." The younger Pliny 
and two grand nephews of the emperor Domitian were among his 
pupils. In him ancient literary criticism reached its highest 
pitch of excellence, and he has been a guide to the rhetoricians 
and orators of all succeeding ages. His reviews are always very 
fine, and his judgments usually just. Some of his characteriza- 
tions are very pretty; as when he speaks of how ''Horace soars 
now and then, and is full of sweetness and grace, and in his varied 
forms and phrases is most fortunately bold;" or "the immortal 
swiftness of Sallust," or "the milky richness of Livy;" always, 
indeed, showing a sensitive appreciation and accurate judgment 
of the merits of any author whom he touches. His great work is 
a complete treatise upon the subject of rhetoric, in twelve books, 
entitled "De Institutiones Oratoris." 

That he understood the nature of youth and was qualified to 
teach is evident from some of his maxims that have come down 
lo us, of which the following are a few : 

"Give me a boy who rouses when he is praised, who profits 
when he is encouraged, and who cries when he is defeated. Such 
a boy will be fired by ambition ; he will be stung by reproach, and 

26 



QUINTILIAN 27 

animated by preference; never shall I apprehend any bad conse- 
quences from idleness in such a boy." 

*'By nature we are very tenacious of what we imbibe in the 
dawn of life, in the same manner as new vessels retain the flavor 
which they first drink in. There is no recovering wool to its 
native whiteness after it is dyed." 

"Our minds are like our stomachs ; they are whetted by the 
ohange of food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite." 

"I have no great opinion of any boy's capacity, whose aim is 
to raise a laugh, by his talent of mimicry." 

Quintilian is in accord with the most advanced educational 
authorities of the present day on the subject of corporal punish- 
ment. That he did not believe that to spare the rod was to spoil 
the child, is evident from the following paragraph: 

"I am by no means for whipping boys who are learning — in 
the first place, because the practice is unseemly and slavish ; and 
in the next place, if the boy's genius is so dull as to be proof 
against reproach, he will, Hke a worthless slave, become likewise 
insensible to blows." 

He was a believer, also, in that great educational truth which 
is expressed in the homely adage: "You can't make a silk purse 
out of a sow's ear," for he says : 

"One thing, however, I must promise, that without the as- 
sistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy." 

As a teacher of eloquence he lays down the following funda- 
mental principle : 

"Now, accordmg to my definition, no men can be a complete 
orator unless he is a good man. It is the heart and mental energy 
ihat inspires eloquence." 

The following, upon the same subject, is fine: 

"Brilliant thoughts are, I consider, as it were, the eyes of 
eloquence; but I would not that the body were all eyes, lest the 
other members should lose their proper functions." 

And this: 

"But give me the reader who figures in his mind the idea of 
doquence, all divine as she is; who, with Euripides, gazes upon 



28 QUINTILIAN 

her all-subduing charms ; who seeks not his reward from the venal 
fee for his voice, but from that reflection, that imagination, that 
perfection of mind which time cannot destroy nor fortune affect." 
How like the noble sentiment attributed to our own Ruf us Choate, 
that "He does not truly succeed as an advocate who practices his 
profession with an eye single to the golden fee." 

In the usage of language he proclaims the cardinal rule that 
''The common usage of learned men, however, is the surest director 
of speaking ; and language, like money, when it receives the public 
stamp, ought to have currency." Which suggests the oft-quoted 
L-nes of Pope : 

"In words as in fashions, the same rule will hold, 
Alike too fantastic if too new or old ; 
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." , 

The following are among the characteristic sayings of Quin- 
tihan : 

"Things forbidden alone are loved immoderately; wnen they 
may be enjoyed, they do not excite the desire." 

"Though ambition in itself is a vice, it is yet often the parent 
of virtue." 

"Virtue, although she in some measure receives her begin- 
ning from nature, yet gets her finishing excellencies from learn- 
ing." 

"Nature has formed us with honest inclinations, and when we 
are so inclined, it is so very easy to be virtuous, that, if we seri- 
ously reflect, nothing is more astonishing than to see so many 
wicked.'* 

"Cultivate innocence, and think not that your deeds, because 
they are concealed, will be unpunished ; you have committed them 
under the canopy of heaven — there is a more powerful witness." 



PART TWO 

GREAT GREEK AUTHORS 



I. 


AESCHYLUS. 


11. 


ARISTOTLE. 


III. 


EURIPIDES. 


IV. 


HOMER. 


V. 


PLATO. 


VI. 


PLUTARCH. 


VII. 


MENANDER 


VIII. 


PINDAR. 


IX. 


ANACREON. 


X. 


THEOCRITUS 



Land of the Muse! within thy bowers 

Her soul-entrancing echoes rung, 
While on their course the rapid hour: 

Paused at the melody she sung — 
Till every grove -and every hill, 

And every stream that flowed along 
From morn to night repeated still 

The winning harmony of song. 

— From "Greece," by James G. Brooks. 



I. 

AESCHYLUS. 

Aeschylus, the ''father of Greek tragedy," was a native of 
Eleusis, in Attica, where he was born B. C. 525. When thirty- 
five years of age he took a distinguished part in the battle of 
Marathon. In a painting portraying this battle, the likeness of 
Aeschylus appears in the foreground, thus sharing the honors 
with Miltiades, the general commanding the Greek forces in that 
memorable conflict. Six years later, at the age of forty-one (in 
E. C. 484, the year in which Herodotus the historian was born), 
Aeschylus attained his first dramatic success by winning the prize 
for tragedy — a feat which he accomplished thirteen times in the 
following sixteen years. 

The hterary style of Aeschylus, though turgid at times, is 
distinguished for its grandeur, fire and force. He has little of 
tenderness, but his theme is lofty, his thought is noble, his man- 
ner elevated, and his grasp is bold and strong. Finely expressive 
of his genius, and among the most beautiful creations of their 
kind, are the songs of the Furies in the ''Eumenides," in "Aga- 
memnon" the inspiration of Cassandra, and the ghost of Darius 
in "The Persians." 

Aeschylus was invited to Sicily by King Hiero, a distin- 
guished patron of the learned, who had induced Pindar and Simon- 
ides to reside at his court. One of his plays, ''The Aetneans," 
was composed at the request of King Hiero. At another time he 
came from Athens to have his play, "The Persians," presented by 
invitation of the same King. 

In the course of forty years of active work in the drama 
Aeschylus is believed to have written ninety plays, of which the 
titles of only seventy-nine are known today. Only seven of his 
tragedies remain. The rest are lost. The seven tragedies extant 
are "The SuppHants," "The Persians," "The Seven Against 
Thebes," "Prometheus Bound," and the trilogy, "Agamemnon," 

29 



30 AESCHYLUS 

'^Choephori," and ''Eumenides." Of the latter work Prof. Clifford 
Herschel Moore, a distinguished critic, remarks: "This trilogy- 
represents the maturest work of Aeschylus, and we may well 
doubt whether a greater was ever written." Mark Pattison de- 
dares it to be "the grandest work of creative genius in the whole 
i'ange of literature." 

In its highest form, Aeschylus was undoubtedly the creator 
of the Greek drama. Not only did he introduce action to super- 
sede the perpetual chorus, and dramatic dialogue in place of long 
narrations, but he was the first to introduce masks, costumes and 
scenic effects. He bodies forth the creations of his genius in lan- 
guage of sublimity and power, and his place is secure among the 
master spirits of the race. 

From the "Prometheus Bound," are taken the beautiful and 
familiar lines: 

"Ye waves 
That o'er the interminable ocean wreathe 
Your crisped smiles." 
And here is a pretty fragment (Plumptre's translation) : 
"So in the Libyan fable it is told 
That once an eagle stricken with a dart, 
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, 
*With our own feathers, not by other's hands, 
Are we now smitten'." 

Hear, also, his tribute to justice: "But justice shines in 
smoky cottages, and honors the pious. Leaving with averted 
eyes the gorgeous glare of gold obtained by polluted hands, she is 
wont to draw nigh to holiness, not reverencing wealth when 
falsely stamped with praise, and assigning to each deed its right- 
eous doom." 

And this, on tyranny, is as true today as when Aeschylus 
wrote it twenty-four hundred years ago : 

"For, somehow, there is this disease in tyranny, not to put 
confidence in friends." 



AESCHYLUS ' 31 

The conclusions of modern criticism are summarized by Lord 
Macaulay, with his customary precision and force, in the follow- 
ing quotation from his essay on John Milton : 

"Aeschylus was, head and heart, a lyric poet. * * * At this 
period, accordingly, it was natural that the literature of Greece 
^'hould be tinctured with the Oriental style. And that style, we 
think, is clearly discernible in the works of Pindar and Aeschylus^ 
The latter often reminds us of the Hebrew writers. The Book 
of Job, indeed, in conduct and diction, bears a considerable resem- 
blance to some of his dramas. Considered as plays, his works ar6 
absurd; considered as choruses, they are above all praise. If, 
for instance, we examine the address of Clytemnestra to Aga- 
memnon on his return, or the description of the seven Argive 
Chiefs, by principles of dramatic writing, we shall instantly con- 
demn them as monstrous. But if we forget the characters, and 
think only of the poetry, we shall admit that it has never been 
surpassed in energy and magnificence.'* 



11. 

ARISTOTLE. 

The most versatile intellect that mankind has ever known, 
thfe master mind of all antiquity and the great mental phenome- 
non in the history of human thought, that mighty prodigy of 
learning known to the world as Aristotle, still gleams adown the 
ages like a distant sun, a beacon-light of learning that casts its 
burning rays upon the farthest shores of time. Aristotle was 
born at Stagira,,B. C. 884, eight years after the death of Socrates. 
He was one year older than his personal friend King Philip of 
Macedon, and was three years older than Demosthenes. 

The son of a physician and naturalist of repute deriving his 
descent through a long line of medical ancestors dating back to 
the immortal Aesculapius, born to wealth and position, and reared 
in an atmosphere of learning, the influence of heredity and en- 
vironment were united to create in the brain of Aristotle the most 
colossal mind that ever found abode within the frame of man. 
At the age of seventeen he proceeded to Athens, to become a pupil 
of Plato, with whom he remained for twenty years. 

When Alexander the Great was born, King Philip announced 
the fact to Aristotle in this letter: ''Know that a son is born to 
us. We thank the gods for their gift, but especially for bestowing 
it at the time when Aristotle lives ; assuring ourselves that, edu- 
cated by you, he will be worthy of us, and worthy of inheriting 
oar kingdom." In due time the philosopher accepted the trust, 
and thus became the mentor of one of the greatest characters of 
history, and the pupil was never wanting in proper respect for 
his distinguished tutor. Years later, when he had defeated Darius 
in battle and was in hot pursuit of the fleeing Persians, Alexander 
paused to write his old teacher: "Alexander, wishing all happi- 
ly ess to Aristotle. You have not done right in publishing your 

32 



ARISTOTLE 33 

a^roatic works. Wherein shall we be distinguished above others, 
if the learning, in which we were instructed, be communicated to 
the public ? I would rather surpass other men in knowledge than 
in power." 

Aristotle at the age of fifty set up his school in Athens near 
the temple of the Lycian Apollo, whence we derive our word 
**lyceum," the name appHed to his school. Aristotle and his fol- 
lowers were called "Peripatetics," from the peripaton, or walk, 
v/hich adorned the temple. Here he wrote and taught, and lived 
the life he loved, until jealous-hearted rivals, exasperated at his 
vast superiority, as mediocrity is so often angered at the sight of 
excellence, caused false charges of ^'impiety" to be preferred 
against him. He would have met the fate of Socrates had he not 
saved himself by a timely flight to Chalcis where, in the sixty- 
third year of his age, he died of a broken heart. 

According to credible report, Aristotle was the author of four 
hundred books, but forty-six of which have survived to us. More 
Ihan ten thousand commentators have sought to elucidate and 
illustrate his works. His influence has been enormous in every 
field of thought. He was the first to perfect a method of reason- 
ing, and formal logic has made little improvement since his day. 
He raised to the status of independent disciplines the subjects of 
Logic, Grammar, Rhetoric, Literary Criticism, Politics, Psycholo- 
gy. He first discovered the law of the Association of Ideas. He 
collected 158 constitutions of various states, and was the first to 
essay a scientific treatise on government. He was the first great 
master of literary criticism. He was, as Dr. Gillies says, "not 
only the best critic in poetry, but himself a poet of the first emi- 
nence. Few of his verses indeed have reached modern times ; but 
the few which remain prove him worthy of the sounding lyre of 
Pindar." 

"Aristotle," as Hegel says, "penetrated into the whole uni- 
verse of things, and subjected to the comprehension its scattered 
wealth ; and the greatest number of the philosophical sciences owe 
to him their separation and commencement." 



84 ' ARISTOTLE 

Education was his whole thought, the key-note of his Hfe, 

the undying passion of his soul, and we may fittingly close this 
sketch with one of his sage admonitions upon the subject dearest 
to his heart: 

"It would therefore be best that the state should pay atten- 
tion to education, and on right principles, and that it should have 
the power to enforce it ; but if it be neglected as a public measure, 
then it would seem to be the duty of every individual to contri- 
bute to the virtue of his children and his friends, or at least to 
make this his dehberate purpose." 



III. 

EURIPIDES. 

Of the three great tragic poets of ancient Greece — Aeschylus, 
Sophocles and Euripides — the last named was the latest. While 
Sophocles is considered the most masterly of the three, Aeschylus 
was the first, and Euripides exceeded either in tenderness and in 
richness of moral sentiment. However, as Dr. Blair says, **Both 
Euripides and Sophocles have very high merit as tragic poets. 
They are elegant and beautiful in their style; just, for the most 
part, in their thoughts ; they speak with the voice of nature ; and, 
making allowance for the difference of ancient and modern ideas, 
in the midst of all their simplicity, they are touching and interest- 
ing." 

Euripides was born in Salamis while the great battle was in 
progress there between the Greeks and Persians. He grew up in 
Athens without any of the advantages of wealth, but was well 
educated. He was the pupil of Anaxagoras — that philosopher 
who said ''philosophy has been my worldly ruin and my soul's pros- 
perity" — and was a warm personal friend of Socrates. He was 
fifteen years younger than his great contemporary, Sophocles, 
who frequently praised his work with the utmost magnanimity. 
Aristophanes, the comic writer, was his bitter enemy, and at- 
tacked him with satire and ridicule in a manner so cutting and 
galling to his sensitive nature that this circumstance is offered 
as one of the reasons for his quitting Athens. Aristotle, how- 
aver, has placed the seal of his own approval upon the literary 
excellence of Euripides, and this alone, if other proofs were want- 
ing, would firmly fix his exalted position among the classics of 
ancient Greece. Plutarch tells us that after the disastrous defeat 
of the Athenians before Syracuse, the Sicilians spared those who 
could repeat any of the poetry of Euripides. "Some there were," 
says he, **who owed their preservation to Euripides. Of all the 

35 



86 EURIPIDES 

Grecians, his was the muse with whom the Sicilians were most in 
love. It is said that upon this occasion a number of Athenians 
on their return home went to Euripides, and thanked him in the 
most grateful manner for their obhgations to his pen." 

Unlike the greater number of the brilliant minds of that day, 
Euripides kept himself aloof from politics, and spent the greater 
part of his life in his library, immersed in the pursuits of litera- 
ture. The king of Macedonia, Archelaus, a patron of letters, in- 
vited the poet to his court at Pella, and there he spent the re- 
mainder of his days. Upon his death, the highest honors were 
paid to his memory, by order of the king. Archelaus erected a 
monument to him, bearing the inscription : *'Never, Euripides, 
will thy memory be forgotten !" The Athenians were anxious to 
remove his remains to Athens, but their request was denied. 
They then erected to his memory at Athens a cenotaph bearing 
this inscription: *'A11 Greece is the monument of Euripides; 
Macedonian earth covers but his bones." Lycurgas, the orator, 
erected a statue to him in the theatre, Sophocles, still surviving, 
publicly lamented his death, and ail Athens made tardy amends 
for the neglect of the great dramatist during his life. 

Tradition accredits Euripides with the authorship of ninety 
plays, but eighteen of which survive. He has found imitators 
and admirers in both ancient and modern times, and his work has 
profoundly influenced the drama in England, Germany and 
France. None of the ancient dramatists has been more exten- 
sively honored by modern editions, such as those in Germany by 
Kirckhoff, Nauck, Prinz and Wecklein, Nestle, and Schwartz; in 
England, by Terrell, Verrall, Jerram, Way, Mahaffy and Cole- 
ridge; and in France by Decharme and others. 

Following are some of his best known sayings: 

''To be modest and pay reverence to the gods; this I think 

to be the most honorable and the wisest thing for mortals." 
"The worst of all diseases among men is impudence." 
"Courage profits man naught, if God denies His aid." 
"That is the noble man, who is full of confident hopes; the 

abject soul despairs." 



EURIPIDES 37 

''Silence and modesty are the best ornaments of a woman, 
r,nd to remain quietly within the house." 

"The woman who, in her husband's absence, seeks to set her 
beauty forth, mark her as a wanton ; she would not adorn her per- 
son to appear abroad unless she was inclined to ill." 

Here is a particularly fine passage on the marks of true no- 
bility: 

"There is no outward mark to note the noble, for the inward 
oualities of man are never clearly to be distinguished. I have 
often seen a man of no worth spring from a noble sire, and worthy 
children arise from vile parents, m.eanness grovelling in the rich 
man's mind and generous feehngs in the poor. How, then, shall 
we discern and judge aright? By wealth? we shall make use of a 
bad criterion. Shall it be by arms ? But who, by looking to the 
spear, could thereby discern the dauntless heart? Will ye not 
learn to judge the man by manners and by deeds? For such men 
as these discharge their duties with honor to the state and to 
their house. Mere flesh without a spirit is nothing more than 
statues in the forum. For the strong arm does not abide the 
shock of battle better than the weak ; this depends on nature and 
an intrepid mind." 



IV. "^l 

HOMER. 

Seven cities vied for Homer's birth with emulation pious; 
Salamis, Samos, Calaphon, Rhodes, Argos, Athens, Chios. 

— Greek Anthology. 

The preponderance of legendary history, however, indicates 
that Smyrna was the birthplace of Homer. There are tales, also, 
that he was blind; and that he was a roving minstrel, singing 
ballads and begging, as he wandered from place to place. There 
are no positive biographical facts. Even his very existence has 
been doubted by a formidable school of German critics, headed 
by Professor Frederick Wolf, of Halle. But the "Illiad" exists. 
So does the Odyssey. They constitute Homer, and are all that 
we really know of Homer, at this hour. The work is there. It 
speaks for itself. Whether it is but a skillful compilation of still 
older ballads, it boots us not to inquire. Homer today is just as 
we found him at the dawn of Grecian civilization. If we except 
the Bible and the Veddas, he is the most ancient book in the world. 
He has supplied for all ages the one grand model of the epic poem, 
and his work is the common heritage of the human race. 

Translations of Homer exist in all the great modern lan- 
guages. Among the most admired have been those of Cesarotti 
and Monti in Italian, that of Montbel in French, that of Voss in 
German, and those of Pope, Chapman and Bryant in English. 
But the sonorous fluency and vehement fire of Homer have never 
been adequately portrayed in any other tongue. As Prof. Blair 
of Edinburgh declared: "I know indeed no author to whom it is 
more difficult to do justice in a translation, than Homer. As the 
plainness of his diction, were it literally rendered, would often 
appear flat in any modern language; so, in the midst of that 
plainness, and not a little heightened by it, there are everywhere 

38 



HOMER 39 

breaking forth upon us flashes of native fire, of subhmity and 
beauty, which hardly any language, except his own, could pre- 
serve. His versification has been universally acknowledged to be 
uncommonly melodious; and to carry, beyond that of any poet, 
a resemblance in the sound to the sense and meaning." 

As Lord Bacon said, "The best part of beauty is that which 
a picture cannot express," just so true is it that the celestial fire 
of Homer defies the translator's art. Thus, the nod of Jupiter, 
extolled by all critics as one of the noblest examples of the sub- 
lime in writing, is literally translated: *'He spoke, and bending 
his sable brows, gave the awful nod ; while he shook the celestial 
locks of his immortal head, all Olympus was shaken." Pope 
translates the passage as follows: 

"He spoke: and awful bends his sable brows, 
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, 
The stamp of fate, and sanction of a god. 
High heaven with trembhng the dread signal took, 
And all Olympus to its center shook." 

Literally translated the majesty of the Homeric concept is pre- 
served, but its exquisite euphony is marred ; while Pope clogs the 
image in order to make an Enghsh rhyme. 

These difficulties and these differences, although they may 
dismay, will not surprise us if we but bear in mind that Homer, 
w^hen he plumed himself for his matchless eagle flight to the 
golden peaks of song, garbed his glowing thoughts in the most 
musical language that ever rippled from the human tongue or 
dropped its fructifying sweetness from the lips of man. Yet, 
these translations often do contain the living flame of genuine 
Homeric fire. Thus, in the twentieth book of the Ilhad, where all 
the gods take part, vre read again from Pope: 

"But when the powers descending swelled the fight. 
Then tumult rose, fierce rage, and pale affright: 
Now through the trembling shores Minerva calls, 
And now she thunders from the Grecian walls. 
Mars, hov'ring o'er his Troy, his terror shrouds 
In gloomy tempests, and a night of clouds ; 



40 HOMER 

No^ through each Trojan heart he fury pours, 
With voice divine, from Illion's topmost towers — 
Above, the sire of gods his thunder rolls, 
And peals on peals redoubled rend the polls ; 
Beneath, stern Neptune shakes the solid ground, 
The forests wave, the mountains nod around ; 
Through all her summits tremble Ida's woods. 
And from their sources boil her hundred floods: 
Troy's turrets totter on the rocking plain. 
And the toss'd waves beat the heaving main. 
Deep in the dismal region of the dead, 
Th' infernal monarch rear'd his horrid head. 
Leapt from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay 
His dark domxinions open to the day 
And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes, 
Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful e'en to gods. 
Such wars th' immortals wage; such horrors rend 
The world's vast concave when the gods contend." 
But Homer is not all a clash of arms and din of steel. He 
not only runs the gamut of all the passions known to man, but 
in sylvan scenes he reflects Nature's rare artistic power, and 
paints with most entrancing skill the sunset and the dawn, the 
calni of midnight and the glory of the stars. Thus, in book 7 of 
thellliad: 

"Now from the smooth, deep ocean-stream the sun 
Began to climb the heavens, and with new rays 
Smote the surrounding fields." 
Or in book 8: 

*'Now deep in Ocean sunk the lamp of light 
And drew behind the cloudy veil of night." 
And in book 3 of the Odyssey : 

''But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn. 
With rosy lustre purpled o'er the lawn." 
Again, there is the storm scene, from book 1'5 of the Illiad: 
''Bursts as a wave that from the clouds impends, 
And swell'd with tempests on the ship descends. 
White are the decks with foam ; the winds aloud 



HOMER " 4L 

Howl o'er the masts and sing through ev'ry shroud : 
Pale, trembling, tir'd, the sailors freeze with fears r 
And instant death on every wave appears." 
Now let us contrast the tempest with this peaceful scene of lovely 
night and all its sylvan beauty and pastoral calm: "As when in 
heaven the stars around the ghttering moon beam loveliest amid 
the breathless air, and in clear outline appear every hill, sharp 
peak and woody dell; deep upon deep the sky breaks open, and 
each star shines forth, while joy fills the shepherd's heart." 

'The multitude of things in Homer is wonderful," says Haz- 
lett — "the splendor, the truth, the power, the variety." As Mat- 
thew Arnold said, "the Homeric poems are the most important 
poetical monument existing." To the ancient Greek, another 
critic says, "Homer was Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, and Domes- 
day Book in one." All poets since his time have been indebted 
to Homer. As Pope observes, even "the periphrases and circum- 
locutions by which Homer expresses the single act of dying have 
supplied succeeding poets with all their manners of phrasing it." 
Says Addison (Spectator, No. 417) : "Homer is in his province 
when he is describing a battle or a multitude, a hero or a god. 
Virgil is never better pleased than when he is in his elysium, or 
copying out an entertaining picture. Homer's epithets generally 
mark out what is great; Virgil's, what is agreeable. Nothing 
can be more magnificent than the figure Jupiter makes in the first 
Illiad, nor more charming than that of Venus in the first Aeneid." 
But Virgil boldly translated whole passages from Homer and 
placed them in the Aeneid as his own. Homer's work is original 
in execution, theme and concept. Virgil, Tasso, Milton and the 
rest have had their models by which to work ; but Homer's model 
was Nature alone, and without human pattern, guide or compass, 
he produced the greatest epic work the world has ever known. 

As old Sir John Denham said so long ago, in his "Progress of 
Learning:" 

"I can no more beheve old Homer blind, 

Than those who say the sun hath never shined; 

The age wherein he lived was dark, but he 

Could not want sight, who taught the world to see.'* , 



V. 
PLATO. 

Aristocles, afterwards known as Plato, "the broad-browed," 
was born on the island of Aegina, B. C. 427, and died at Athens in 
347 B. C. Through his mother he was a descendant of Solon, 
one of the "Seven Wise Men of Greece," and on his father's side 
he traced his lineage from Codrus, one of the early kings of 
Athens. He enjoyed such early opportunities as a comfortable 
fortune could provide, and in his youth was accomplished in all 
the culture of the times. 

Intellectually, Plato was the child of Socrates and the parent 
of Aristotle. At the age of twenty, upon coming under the spell 
of the master mind of Socrates, he is said to have burned all the 
poems he had written, and from that time forth, for the remain- 
ing sixty years of his life, his capacious mind was wholly occupied 
with the profound speculations which have since dazzled the world 
with their brilliancy and wielded a constantly growing influence 
upon the minds of men. 

He remained a pupil of Socrates until B. C. 399, when judicial 
murder put an end to the pure and noble life of that most ma- 
jestic character of antiquity and destroyed what George Henry 
Lewes, in his History of Philosophy, called "the grandest figure 
in the world's Pantheon : the bravest, truest, simplest, wisest of 
mankind," We may the better understand the feelings of Plato 
upon being thus deprived of his master, when we read the 
"Phaedo," detailing the events of Socrates' last day on earth, and 
developing, in the course of the dialogue, the beautiful doctrine 
of the immortality of the soul. Xenophon, also a disciple of 
Socrates and a companion of Plato, has expressed not less truly 
the feelings of both upon that most pathetic occasion, in the 
touching and tender tribute so gracefully set forth in the Memo- 
rabilia (iv. 7.) 

42 



PLATO 43 

Shocked by the cruelty and crushed by the ingratitude and 
bigotry of the tyrants who then ruled Athens in the name of 
democracy, Plato departed into foreign lands. It is believed that 
he visited every country in which learning flourished in any de- 
gree. He delved into the lore of the Egyptians and studied the 
philosophies of the east. His itinerary is not known with cer- 
tainty. But it is known that he was absent from Athens a great 
deal during the ten years following the death of Socrates. In the 
course of his peregrinations, Plato visited Dionysius the Elder, 
tyrant of Syracuse. The tyrant caused him to be sold into 
slavery. Plato, however, was soon ransomed by his friends. 

Returning finally to Athens, in the fortieth year of his age, 
Plato set up his school in the groves of the Academia and began 
to expound his dialectics and to teach the immortal doctrines 
which still encircle his name with a halo of eternal light. To this 
school flocked the bright minds of the world. Here was fashioned 
the sinewy intellect of Aristotle and here was moulded the mighty 
genius of Demosthenes. 

"Hither as to a fountain 
Other suns repair, and in their urns 
Draw golden light." 

Learning of Plato's vast renown, Dionysius of Syracuse wrote to 
express the hope that the philosopher would not think ill of him, 
and received this august and laconic reply: 'Tlato hath not 
leisure to think of Dionysius." For a period of forty years, and 
until death ended his labors, Plato continued to write and teach. 
It is believed that all his writings have reached us unimpaired. 
"For richness and beauty of imagination," says one of the 
foremost English critics, "no philosophic writer, ancient or mod- 
ern, is comparable to Plato. The only fault of his imagination is, 
such an excess of fertility as allows it sometimes to obscure his 
judgment. It frequently carries him into allegory, fiction, enthu- 
siasm, and the airy regions of mystical theology. The philoso- 
pher is, at times, lost in the poet. But whether we be edified 
with the matter or not (and much edification he often affords), 



44 PLATO 

we are always entertained with the manner; and left with a 
strong impression of the sublimity of the author's genius." 

Associated with Plato's doctrine of immortality was his doc- 
trine of the soul's reminiscence, a subconscious recollection of 
beauties contemplated in the pre-earthly existence, a thought 
most beautifully expressed in Wordsworth's ode on "Intimations 
of Immortality": 

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting. 

And com.eth from afar: 
Not in entire forgetfulness. 

And not in utter nakedness. 
But trailing clouds of glory do we com.e 
From God who is our home." 

The writings of Plato not only exercised great influence upon such 
minds as those of Cicero and Plutarch, followers of "the vision 
splendid" in ancient times, but they profoundly affected the Stoics 
as well as the early Christian Fathers, and cast their mystic spell 
far into future ages, where we find their indelible Impress upon 
much of the world's best literature. One cannot proceed far, in 
either literature or philosophy, without encountering the massive 
intellect and the golden eloquence of Plato. Thus do we find it 
reflected in Addison's "Cato", Act V., Sc. I : 

"It must be so — Plato, thou reasonest well. — 

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 

This longing after immortality? 

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror. 

Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 

Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 

'Tis the divinity that stirs wdthin us; 

'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 

And intimates eternity to man." 



PLATO 45 

Plato is greatest in his metaphysics. He has been aptly called 
''the Shakespeare of ideas." He is not so happy in the political 
wriMngs of his later years. He totally misconceived the duties 
of citizenship and the proper functions of the state. Mr. Grote 
thinks that he borrowed much of his ''RepubHc" from the Spartan 
constitution of Lycurgas. He would have done far better to have 
elaborated the work of his own great ancestor, Solon, in the con- 
stitution of Athens. Of these later works we can only observe, 
with Prof. Jowett: "The wings of his imagination have begun 
to droop, but his experience of life remains, and he turns from the 
contemplation of the eternal to take a last sad look at human 
affairs." Plato's ''Republic" was the natural progenitor of More's 
"Utopia," Bacon's "New Atlantis," Harrington's "Oceana," and 
Campanella's "City of the Sun." 



VI. 
PLUTARCH. 

The exact dates of the birth and death of Plutarch are un- 
known, but the period of his life may be safely approximated at 
A. D. 50 to A. D. 120. Although he established no new school of 
thought, and although his style of composition is not distinguished 
for any peculiar beauty or elegance, he is nevertheless one of the 
most celebrated writers of antiquity, and is remarkable for his 
humane principles and his unsullied moral excellence. 

Plutarch was born at the little town of Chaeronaea, and spent 
his last days there. It is also known that he was entrusted with 
a diplomatic mission to Kome, and resided for some time at that 
great capital, where, in the time of Domitian, he delivered lectures 
on philosophy. There is a report, doubted by many, but believed 
by Langhorne and others, that he was tutor to the emperor 
Trajan. Certainly the humane traits of that excellent prince 
would suggest naught against the supposition. It is definitely 
known, hov\^ever, that Plutarch's nephew, Sextus, was a preceptor 
of the great Marcus Aurelius, who publicly acknowledged, in his 
"Meditations," his indebtedness to that philosopher, in terms pe- 
culiarly applicable to Plutarch himself. 

The greater part of the writings of Plutarch are now no 
longer extant. Of those that remain, civilization is chiefly in- 
debted to him for his ''Lives of Illustrious Men." 

Among all the biographical works ever written, in either 
ancient or modern times, Plutarch's Lives will easily rank first. 
No writer has had a greater influence upon the youthful mind. 
Alfieri was first inspired with a passion for literature by reading 
Plutarch's Lives. The great Napoleon received his first inspira- 
tion from the same source. He has been accorded the highest 
praise by such critics as Petrarch, Montaigne, St. Evremont and 
Montesquieu, and was Montaigne's favorite author. Sir John 
Lubbock places Plutarch's Lives among the one hundred best 

46 



PLUTARCH 47 

books which should be in every Ubrary and read by every person 
pretendinof to any degree of culture. The world's literature in all 
ages since his day has been embellished by this great work. 

In 1579 Sir Thomas North translated the Lives from a 
French version into English, and this work beyond all doubt fur- 
nished Shakespeare with the materials for Coriolanus, Timon of 
Athens, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. In some in- 
stances the gjreat English dramatist has appropriated the lan- 
guage of Plutarch almost verbatim. This is particularly true 
of his "Julius Caesar," and also of his '"Coriolanus." "The Life 
of Theseus," and "The Life of Pericles" also served in Shake- 
speare's Midsummer-Night's Dream and in Pericles. 

It is remarkable How great a portion of our knowledge of the 
illustrious men of antiquity is drawn from Plutarch. Thus, Lord 
Bacon says: "One of the Seven was wont to say: That laws were 
like cob-webs; where the small flies were caught, and the great 
break through'." But none of the Seven Wise Men of Greece 
ever said any such thing. In the life of Solon, Plutarch records 
the fact that v/hile the great Athenian was working on his laws, 
he was visited by Anarcharsis, the Scythian, and "when Anarch- 
arsis heard what Solon was doing, he laughed at the folly of 
thinking that he could restrain the unjust proceedings and avarice 
of his fellow citizens by written laws, which, he said, resembled 
in every way spiders' webs, and would, hke them, catch and hold 
only the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful would easily 
break through them." Curiously enough, the modern world, fol- 
lowing Bacon, has quite unjustly attributed this Scythian senti- 
ment to Solon. 

Many are the noble sentiments that gleam in the "Lives," 
as well as in the "Morals" of Plutarch. However, space permits 
us to present but fev/: 

"It is more fitting to err on the side of religion, from a regard 
to ancient and received opinion, than to err through obstinacy and 
presumption." 



48 PLUTARCH 

And this, on education: 

"Men derive no pfreater advantage from a liberal education 
than that it tends to soften and polish their nature, by improving 
their reasoning faculties and training their habits, thus producing 
an evenness of temper and banishing all extremes." 

And this, on statesmanship: 

"The honest and upright statesman pays no regard to the 
popular voice except with this view, that the confidence it pro- 
cures him may facilitate his designs, and crown them with suc- 
cess." In other words, a great statesman must do the right and 
just thing, whether his constituency wish him to do so or not. 



VII. - 

MENANDER. 

Menander, a native of Athens (born B. C. 342, died B. C. 291), 
was the most celebrated poet of the ''new comedy." His father 
was a famous Athenian general. Menander was an intimate 
friend of the philosopher Epicurus, whose teaching was reflected 
in the light-hearted, sprightly nature and frolicsome disposition 
of the poet. He was of handsome person, gay, and fond of lux- 
ury, but does not appear to have been grossly addicted to the 
vices of his time. He was the author of more than a hundred 
plays, and for several centuries after his death his plays were 
the most popular among the Grecian comedies. 

Menander spent the greater part of his life mingling in the 
swirl of Athenian gaiety, while residing at his villa near the 
city. The King of Egj^pt, one of his ardent admirers, extended 
to him a pressing invitation to reside as his guest at the Egyptian 
capital, but the Greek poet preferred his own care-free life to the 
gilded conventionality and soul-bought largess of a royal court. 

Not a single one of his plays has survived to modern times, 
but we may form some conception of their excellence by the nu- 
merous imitations afforded us in the plays of Plautus and Terence. 
Ancient critics extolled the writings of Menander for their poetic 
artistry, refined wit and sententious humor; and for his grasp 
of human nature, and the purity of his moral concepts. More 
than a thousand fragments of his works have come down to us, 
and they in no wise detract from the esteem in which we are con- 
strained to hold him because of the laudations of ancient authori- 
ties. 

We are indebted to German scholarship for the best extant 
editions of the ''Fragments": one by Meineke (Berhn, 1841) and 
the other by Kock (Leipzig, 1888). 

Menander's incisive wit is aptly set forth in his dealings with 
the "eternal feminine," as when he says : 

4P 



50 MENANDER 

"Happy am I who have no wife!" Or, this: "Where are 
women, there are all kinds of mischief." Anvd this: "The wife 
ought to play the second part, the husband ruling in everything; 
for there is no family in which the wife has had the upper hand, 
which has not gone to ruin." 

Elsewhere he says: "To marry a wife, if we regard the 
truth, is an evil, but it is a necessary evil/' How suggestive, 
this, of St, Chrysostom's description of woman as "a necessary 
evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, 
a deadly fascination and a painted ill!" And of the outburst of 
honest old Thomas Otway, in "The Orphan", (Act iii., Sc. 1) : 

"What mighty ills have not been done by woman! 
Who was't betray'd the Capitol? A woman; 
Who lost Mark Antony the world ? A wom.an ; 
Who was the cause of a long ten years' war. 
And laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman; 
Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!" 

In the same spirit did Milton cry out in the anguish of his heart 
(Paradise Lost, Bk. ix., 1. 888) : 

"Oh, why did God, 
Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven ' 

With spirits masculine, create at last 
This novelty on earth, this fair defect 
Of nature, and not fill the world at once 
With men as angels without feminine. 
Or find some other way to generate 
Mankind ? This mischief had not then befallen." 

Following his anti-feminine bent, Menander also observed that 
"A daughter is an embarrassing and ticklish possession." Per- 
haps he gave the cue to Sheridan (The Duenna, Act i., sc. 3) : 



MENANDER 51 

"If a daughter you have, she's the plague of your life; 
No peace shall you know, though you've buried your wife ! 
At twenty she mocks at the duty you taught her — 
Oh, what a plague is an obstinate daughter !" 

In another fragment Menander pursues the same thought: "A 
wise son is a delight to his father, while a daughter is a trouble- 
some possession." And then he adds: "Of all wild beasts on 
earth or in sea, the greatest is a woman." 

But Menander did not write solely to provide texts for the 
mysogonists. Passing from the contemplation of sentiments so 
little promotive of marital felicity and domestic concord, we find 
our poet gifted with a wealth of wisdom denied to many minds of 
more sober hue. Thus, he says : 

"Evil communications corrupt good manners" — a phrase we 
afterwards find in the New Testament. 

"No just man has ever become suddenly rich." 

"It does not become any living man to say, 'This will not hap- 
pen to me'." 

"Every wise and honorable man hates a lie." 

"Nothing is more useful to a man than silence." 

"Whosoever lends a greedy ear to a slanderous report is either 
himself of a radically bad disposition, or a mere child in sense." 

"How pleasant a thing it is for brothers to dwell together in 
unity" — almost the exact words of the 133rd Psalm: "Behold, 
how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in 
unity !" 

"It is the mind that ought to be rich; for the riches of this 
world only feed the eyes, and serve merely as a veil to cover the 
realities of life." 

That Menander knew something about the science of health 
preservation is evident from the following: 

"The plague dwells where sanitary laws are neglected." 



^'2 MENANDER 

Menander won the prize in comedy at the age of twenty-one, 
and achieved seven similar triumphs during his dramatic career. 
He was fond of athletic sports, and was drowned while swimming 
in the harbor of the Pireaeus. Menander loved the country life, 
and it was a great saying of his that "Men are taught virtue and 
love of independence by living in the country." 

Finally, he was not oblivious of the lesson of mortality : "If 
thou wishest to know what thou art, look at the monuments of 
the dead as thou passest along the road; there thou wilt find the 
bones and light dust of kings, and tyrants, and v/ise men, and of 
those who prided themselves on their blood and riches, on their 
glorious deeds, and on the beauty of their persons; but none of 
these things could resist the power of time. All men have a 
common grave. Looking at these things, thou mayest know what 
thou art." Yea, verily ! As it is written in the Book of Genesis 
(iii:19) — 'Tor dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 



VIII. 
PINDAR. 

It is related by Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander the Great, 
that when Thebes fell before his conquering arms only the house 
of Pindar was spared, and thus did the poet's posterity escape the 
wholesale destruction visited upon their city; so great was Alex- 
ander's veneration of the memory of the Theban poet. The 
Spartan soldiery, noted for implacable cruelty, had already, on a 
previous occasion, shown by their forbearance the same pious 
regard for the inspired Theban. 

Thus was impressed upon the ancient mind the fame of 
Pindar, the father of lyric poetry. He was born at or near Thebes, 
B. C. 522, and died B. C. 442. He was educated in music and 
poetry, and showed great talent at an early age. An old Grecian 
legend recites that in his youth a swarm of bees alighted upon his 
lips, attracted by the sv/eetness that was soon to richly trickle 
forth its honeyed harmonies of entrancing verse. Pindar drank 
deeply of the pure Pierian spring, and soared on golden wing unto 
the highest pinnacle of song. His praises were sounded by such 
eminent masters as Cicero and Pausanias. Plato called him the 
"divine Pindar," and distinguished him by the epithet "most 
wise." Clement of Alexandria, one of the early Christian Fa- 
thers, declared him to have been well versed in the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures. Pindar was contemporary with Aeschylus, and shared, 
with that great master of Greek tragedy, the warm personal 
friendship of King Hiero of Syracuse, at whose court he resided 
for four years. Of the golden treasury of verse created by his 
magic pen, only the "Triumphal Odes" have reached our times. 
Of all his paeans, odes and hymns, which smote the ear of an- 
tiquity with the voice of a god and trembled away into the silence 
of the ages, the greater part are lost; but the dying echo of his 
silver-throated trump still lingers in such lines as these, describ- 

53 



54 PINDAR 

ing the islands of the blessed, in the Second Olympic Ode : 

**But they whose spirit thrice refined 
Each arduous conquest could endure, 
And keep the firm and perfect mind 
From all contagion pure; 
: Along the stated path of Jove 

To Saturn's royal courts above 

Have trod their heavenly way 
\^'Tiere round the islands of the bless'd 

The ocean breezes play; 
There golden flow'rets ever blow, 
Some springing from earth's verdant breast, 
These on the lonely branches glow. 
While those are nurtured by the waves below. 
From them the inmates of these seats divine 
Around their hands and hair the woven garlands twine." 

In his translations Pindar has not been so fortunate as have 
others among the Greek classics. Among the most elaborate of 
modern criticisms is the profound and scholarly work of Schmidt, 
in German, and the brilliant essay of Villemain, in French. 
Among the most successful English translations are those of 
Carey, Abraham Moore, Morice, and Baring. Pindar has had 
many imitators among both the ancients and the moderns. The 
Pindaric Odes of Thomas Gray are the purest specimens of their 
kind in English. The many attempts among the Latins to imi- 
tate Pindar were deprecated by wise old Horace, who said, in his 
**Carmina:" 

**He who studies to imitate the poet Pindar, Julius, relies 
on artificial wings, fastened on with wax." 

Horace thus enumerates the numerous themes upon which 
the prolific muse of Pindar was employed: 



PINDAR 55 

"Whether th' immortal gods he sings 

In a no less immortal strain, 
Or the great acts of god-descended kingS; 

Who in his numbers still survive and reign; 
Whether in Pisa's race he please 
To carve in polish'd verse the conqueror's image ; 
Whether some brave man's untimely fate 
In words vi^rth dying for he celebrate ; 
Such mournful and such pleasing words. 
As joy to his mother's and his mistress' grief affords." 

The quotation is from the ode of Horace beginning "Pin- 
darum quisquis," etc., and the translation is by Cowley. 

Pindar was probably the premier panegyrist of all history. 
His fame extended throughout all the Hellenic states, and by 
every great city and state he was called upon to compose the 
choruses, hymns and triumphal odes for great festive occasions. 
And therefore Horace quite truly says that many ancient kings 
who would otherwise be unknown to fame 



«* * 



* in his numbers still survive and reign." 



In concluding this sketch, let us offer one Pindaric phrase 
that has stood the test of twenty-five centuries and is still true 
today : *'In every form of government a straight forward, plain- 
speaking man is most respected, whether it be a despotism, or 
tumultous democracy, or where the educated few hold sway." 



IX. 
ANACREON. 

I see Anacreon smile and sing; 
His silver tresses breathe perfume; 
His cheeks display a second spring 
Of roses, taught by wine to bloom. 
Away, deceitful Care! away, 
And let me listen to his lay. 

— Akenside, Ode XHI., "On Lyric Poetry." 

Anacreon, the leading amatory poet of Greece, and one of the 
greatest lyric bards of all time, flourished during the greater part 
of the sixth century before the Christian era, and was contem- 
porary with Cyrus the Great, King Polycrates of Samos, and Hip- 
parchus, of Athens. He was a native of Teos, a city of Ionia, 
it is said that by the captivating strains of his songs he softened 
the heart of Polycrates and developed in the tyrant a spirit of 
Idndness toward his subjects. Hipparchus, the Athenian tyrant, 
said by Plato to have been the first to edit the poems of Homer 
and cause them to be sung at public festivals, heard of the fame 
of the Ionic bard and sent a galley with fifty oars to bring him 
across the Aegean sea. So greatly was Anacreon esteemed in his 
native city that his likeness was stamped upon the coins ; and in 
Athens, after his death, a statue of him was erected at the Acro- 
pohs. 

Only a few of the odes of Anacreon remain, but they are suf- 
ficient to portray the enchanting elegance of his flowing verse. 
Thomas Moore says, in the preface to his translation of the "Odes 
of Anacreon" : "After the very enthusiastic eulogiums bestowed 
both by ancients and moderns upon the poems of Anacreon, we 
need not be diflfident at expressing our raptures at their beauty, 
nor hesitate to pronounce them the most polished remains of 

56 



ANACREON 57 

antiquity. They are, indeed, all beauty, all enchantment." So 
speaks one of the great masters of English verse. We need not, 
however, seek the grand conflagrations of Homer in the love- 
sparks of the Teian muse; for, as he himself has sung in the 
Second Ode (Moore's translation) : 

''Give me the harp of epic song. 
Which Homer's finger thrilled along; 
But tear away the sanguine string, 
For war is not the theme I sing." 

Quite to the contrary, indeed, we find him ever "dancing to the 
lute's soft strain," where "purple clusters twine," and "hyacinths 
sweet odors breathe," amid the "perfumed gales from beds of 
flowers," tuning his lyre to "love's sweet silver sounds ;" celebrat- 
mg "blithe Bacchus, the generous god of wine," or "Venus, love's 
sweet smiling queen, rising from her silver sea," cheering his con- 
vivial votaries with "golden goblets" of "rosy wine," while trilling 
forth pulsating symphonies of love. 

One of the choicest bits of lyric art is his Fifty-third Ode, 
"On the Rose," from which are culled the following familiar lines 
(Bourne's translation), detailing the origin of the poet's favorite 
flower : 

"A drop of pure nectareous dew 
From heaven the bless'd immortals threw ; 
A while it trembled on the thorn. 
And then the lovely rose was born. 
To Bacchus they the flower assign, 
And roses still his brows intwine." 

The Fifth Ode of Bourne's translation is also inspired by the rose, 
which he describes as adding "fresh fragrance to the wine ;" and 
then the poet strikes his quivering harp and warbles forth in most 
exquisite mood: 



58 ANACREON 

"Oh, lovely rose ! to thee I sing, ; 

Thou sweetest, fairest child of spring! i 

Oh, thou art dear to all the gods, | 

The darhng of their bless'd abodes. \ 

Thy breathing buds and blossoms fair ] 

Entwine young Cupid's golden hair, '■ 

When gayly dancing, hand in hand, \ 

He joins the Graces' lovely band." i 

\ 

Anon the old bard laughs at himself and makes merry over j 

his advancing age, as when, in the Eleventh Ode, he sings : ] 

" 'Anacreon', the lasses say, 

'Old fellow, you have had your day'," etc. 

In the Nineteenth Ode he very gravely sets forth his reasons for ^ 

drinking : i 

"The earth drinks up the genial lains i 
Which deluge all her thirsty plains ; 

The lofty trees that pierce the sky 1 

Drain up the earth and leave her dry ; i 

Th' insatiate sea imbibes, each hour, ! 

The welcome breeze that brings the show'r ; i 

The sun, whose fires so fiercely burn, | 

Absorbs the wave ; and, in her turn, i 
The modest moon enjoys, each night, 

Large draughts of his celestial light. i 

Then, sapient sirs, pray tell me why, ! 
If all things drink, why may not I?" - • 

From such ribald merriment he turns to sighs of tender senti- 
ment and rosy love, like his ode "The Dream," of which Madame I 
Dacier says that it is one of the finest and most gallant odes of 
antiquity, and has been greatly admired by all who "rove the 
flowery paths of love." 



ANACREON 59 

How like the mellow-throated nightingale's melodious note, 
trilling flute-like from some scented Lydian grove, are the sweet, 
seductive measures of Anacreon, with all his lilting levities, pip- 
ing plaintively his tender songs of love, breathing fragrance 
where they blovv% murmuring his soft Aeolian sounds through 
rosy bowers, or in the fronded shadow of the trees, where yet 
the loitering Graces love to linger among the v/hispering violets, 
and wood-nymphs dance upon the sward! Hf- did not essay the 
empyrean heigjits of song, buoyed by the battle-trump, to revel 
in the conflicts of the gods. His was a gentler m.use, lulled by the 
breath of flutes, seeking the sequestered nooks, frolicking among 
the flowerS; basking with the satyrs and the fauns, luxuriating in 
the langour of the lapping wave, titillating among the fountains, 
lolling in blossoms, or sipping nectar from the silver dews. Frown 
upon him as we may, deprecate his morals as we must, no sweeter 
song is treasured in the heart than that which beauty purloins 
from the lips of youth; and, so long as men are men and maids 
are maids, youth and health will succumb to Anacreon's subtle 
and subduing charm, or struggle to resist hi^:: soft, bewitching 
spell. He is a living flower among garlands that are dead. Gone 
is the muse from Hellas; gone are the dream and song; gone is 
the haunting sweetness of the lute's voluptuous lay; but while 
aught of Anacreon remains, their pictured memories will forever 
ghnt and glow along the golden sands of Time. 



X. 
THEOCRITUS. 

Theocritus, the father of Greek pastoral poetry, and the first 
great artist of his kind, flourished in the first half of the third 
century B. C. He was born in Syracuse, and King Hiero II. was 
liis friend. But his great patron was Ptolmey Philadelphus, King 
of Egypt, the founder of the Alexandrian Library. We have no 
further biographical data touching his career, aside from the fact 
that some thirty Idyls bear his name; some of these, no doubt, 
being spurious. 

To the student of literature, Theocritus, however meager his 
remains, will be forever treasured as the founder of that delight- 
ful school of poesy which has enriched all the languages of civili- 
zation with its placid portrayal of country life. Theocritus was 
followed by two Greek pastoral poets, Bion and Moschus. But 
his greatest disciple in ancient times was Virgil. 

In his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Prof. Blair 
observes that Theocritus is distinguished for the simplicity of his 
sentiments; for the sweetness and harmony of his numbers, and 
for the richness of his scenery and description. *'He is the origi- 
nal, of which Virgil is the imitator. For most of Virgil's highest 
beauties in his Eclogues are copies from Theocritus; in many 
places he has done nothing more than translate him." Theocritus 
followed Nature; whereas, Virgil followed Theocritus. From 
^^irgil the bucolic motive spread to Catullus and Horace, and 
finally through all the languages of western Europe. 

Dante, Petrarch, Giovanni and Boccaccio led the Virgilian 
revival in Italy in the fourteenth century, being followed in the 
sixteenth century by Tasso and Guarini, all of whom produced 
pastorals patterned after the ancient classics. In France the 
pastoral ideal culminated in the "Astree," a prose romance pub- 

60 



THEOCRITUS 61 

lished in the seventeenth century by d'Urife. In Spain we find 
its rarest triumph in the ''Galatea" of Cervantes, and in Germany 
the pastoral reached its most perfect form in Goethe's ''Hermann 
und Dorothea," which harks back to the simplicity and purity of 
Theocritus. 

In England the pastoral sprang into being under the magic 
touch of Edmund Spenser, in the Shepherd's Calendar, and blos- 
somed into the full fruition of its undying charms in the works 
of Fletcher, Ben Johnson and Shakespeare, and in the "Comus" 
and "Lycidas" of John Milton. The critics are not partial to the 
pastorals of Pope and Am^brose Philips, published early in the 
eighteenth century. In m^ore recent times, the traces of Theocri- 
tus are readily discernible in Tennyson's "Dora" and "The Miller's 
Daughter," Thus has the lay of the Sicilian shepherd made its 
pipings audible to every ear attuned to the harmonies of nature, 
through all the great languages of ancient and modern times. 
In whatever tongue he speaks, his idyls retain their pristine tresh- 
ness to the present hour. What rustic scene, for example, could 
be more truly drawn than this: 

"Poplars and elms above their foliage spread, 
Lent a cool shade, and wav'd the breezy head ; 
Below, a stream from the nymph's sacred cave, 
In free meanders led its murm'ring wave- 
In the warm sunbeams, verdant shades among, 
Shrill grasshoppers renew'd their plaintive song; 
At distance far, conceal'd in shades, alone, 
Sweet Philomela pour'd her tuneful moan ; 
The lark, the goldfinch, warbled lays of love, 
And sweetly pensive coo'd the turtle-dove; 
While honey-bees, forever on the wing, 
Humm'd round the flowers, or sipt the silver spring ; 
The rich, ripe season gratified the sense 
With summer's sweets, and autumn's redolence. 
Apples and pears lay strew'd in heaps around, 
And the plum's loaded branches kiss'd the ground." 



62 THEOCRITUS 

In his later days Theocritus grew dissatisfied with the court 
of Hiero, and retired to the country, where the remainder of his 
hfe was spent in contemplation of those rural scenes which his 
pen has preserved with a fidelity and simplicity so often imitated, 
i'o rarely equalled, so universally admired, and forever unsur- 
passed. He it was who vocalized the shepherd's song and taught 
the rustic maid to speak the language of the heart; who tinted 
the wealth of nature with the wonders of human speech ; and he 
it was who found, two thousand years before great Shakespeare's 
time, 

«Hc * * tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

As James Russell Lowell so beautifully said, in his oration on the 
250th anniversary of the founding of Harvard College: "The 
gardens of Sicily are empty now, but the bees from all climes 
still fetch honey from the tiny garden plot of Theocritus." 



PART THREE. 

GREAT ITALIAN AUTHORS 



I. DANTE. 

II. PETRARCH. 

III. BOCCACCIO. 

IV. TASSO. 

V. ARIOSTO. 

VI. BOIARDO. 

VII. MICHELANGELO. 

VIII. MACHIAVELLI. 

IX. METASTASIO. 

X. ALFIERI. 



Italy is still the privileged land of nature and 
humanity; and the manly pith of its great ages is 
neither degenerated nor dried up. Involved, by the 
irresistible fall of the old world, in the decay of the 
universal empire she had founded, no nation upon 
earth has withstood so long a period of deposition 
without debasement and dissolution. Her glory, her 
religion, her genius, her name, her language, her 
monuments and her larts, have continued to reign 
after the fall of her fortune She alone has not 
had an age of civil darkness after her age of mili- 
tary dlominion. She has subjected the barbarians 
who conquered her, to her worship, her laws, and her 
civilization. While profaning, they submitted to 
her; though conquerors, they humbly besought her 
for laws, manners and religion. Nearly the whole 
continent is nothing but an intellectual, moral and 
religious colony of this mother country of Europe, 
Asia and Africa. * * * War, policy, literature, com- 
merce, arts, navigation, manufactures, diplomacy, 
all emanated from Italy. Her names resemble those 
eternal dynasties, on which the supremacy, in every 
region of the human mind, has been devolved by 
nature, and of, which such men as Sixtus V., Leo X., 
Cosmo, Tasso, Dante, Machiavel, Michael Angelo, 
Raphael, Petrarch, Galileo, Doria, and Christopher 
Columbus, transmit to each other, even at this day, 
the scepter that no other nation could snatch from 
their privileged race. 

— Lamartine. 



I. 

DANTE. 

Dante Alighieri, "father of Ttfscan literature," and greatest 
of the Italian poets, was born in Florence, in the year 1265, and 
died at Ravenna in the year 1321, aged fifty-six years and four 
months. Aside from the romantic story of his love for Beatrice, 
little of his early life is known. After the marriage of Beatrice 
to another, and her early death, the poet resolver' that if he lived 
he would write of her "what had never yet been written of any 
v'oman." His resolution was magnificently carried out in the 
Divinia Commedia. 

Dante was now past twenty-five years of age. He consoled 
himself by reading philosophical books, which, ho says, were read 
by him with great difficulty. Five or six years after the death 
of Beatrice he married. He reared four children. In about the 
year 1295 Dante enrolled himself in the Guild of Physicians and 
Apothecaries. In the year 1300 he entered politics. Here his 
miseries began. He was an upright and honest citizen, and a 
zealous and fearless advocate of civil and religious liberty. His 
first public employment was upon a diplomatic mission. In the 
same year he was elected to one of the highest offices in the gift 
r.f the city. But Florence, like the other petty Italian states of 
the time, was badly disrupted by factional strife. The most 
thorough search of historical records has demonstrated, beyond 
peradventure, that Dante's public life, like his private conduct, 
was at all times honest and clean. Nevertheless, while he was 
c-way on public business, leaders of a rival faction seized the gov- 
ernment ; and, without arraignment, investigation or trial, pro- 
ceeded to convict Dante of extortion, peculation and malversation 
in office, and levied against him a ruinous fine, besides decreeing 
hanishment for two years, and perpetual disqualification from 
office. Dante declined to recognize the validity of this iniquitous 

• 63 



64 DANTE 

decree, and a second sentence was pronounced against him, order- 
ing him to be burned aHve. 

Dante remained an exile for the remainder of his life. Never 
again did he set foot upon the soil of his native city. But his 
enemies were never able to capture him and carry out their in- 
famous designs against his life. We are unable to follow the dis- 
tressed and persecuted poet in his wanderings, but we know that 
he travelled over Italy seeking to organize expeditions for the 
relief and redemption of his beloved Florence from the murderous 
band of ruffianly marplots who had gained control of the city. 
He visited various cities of France. Boccaccio thinks that he 
visited England and studied at Oxford ; but there is scant evidence 
of this. He finally settled at Ravenna, where he finished his im- 
mortal poem, the Divinia Commedia, in one hundred cantos, 
ciivided into three books, the Inferno, the Purgatorio and the Para- 
diso. The poem is not an epic, and it is not a satire. It defies 
classification in the ordinary categories of verse. It is the soul 
of Dante; as such it stands and weaves its mystic spell. The 
Commedia is published in over three hundred editions, in every 
modern language, and its commentators form a library. Dante 
was unknown to the English-reading pubHc until about one hun- 
dred years ago, when Carey's translation was published, in 1805-6. 
Even Carey's version (still the most popular English translation) 
^anguished in obscurity for several years, and until 1818, when it 
.\.as warmly praised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in one of his 
London lectures, and as a consequence, the work sprang into im.- 
mediate popularity. 

Soon after his death, when the matchless dream of his un- 
dying genius was the sensation of the hour, and the world of 
letters was worshipping at the tomb of Dante, his countrymen 
began to show every honor to his memory. A public lectureship 
was established to expound his poem, and Boccaccio was the first 
lecturer. Often in the ages that have since cast their mantle 
of oblivion over the wicked generation which so shamefully abused 
their city's noblest son, the people of Florence have, without avail, 
sought to procure from Ravenna the ashes of the poet — seeking 



DANTE 65 

the poet's ashes, when, as Lowell so aptlj^ remarked, if they had 
caught the poet living they would have converted his body into 
cinders. Whereat we cannot but observe, with Byron (Child 
Harold, iv., St. 57) : 

''Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, 
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore.'* 
Whether we wander in the hopeless terrors of the Inferno, 
sense the star-lit beauties of the Purgatorio, or contemplate the 
f?erene splendors of the Paradiso, we must conclude that, in the 
v-hole range of literature, the vast creation of Dante is without 
precursor; counterpart or progeny. As his vision of heaven re- 
flects like a mirror the supernal gleam of the gates ajar, just so 
surely does his dream of hell show forth the torments of the 
damned. There is, there was, there can be, no other of its kind. 
In his dark dominion Dante rules alone. He knows no partner in 
Lis hermit sway. Like a meteor shot from eternity, or as light- 
nings cleave the inky blackness of a storm-swept sky, his lurid 
genius lights in fitful flashes the clouds that cover it, and then 
goes thundering through the vastitudes of space, in an orbit all 
its own, rolling like a planet in its solitary course. In the Inferno 
V7e find no Peri knocking at the gates of dawn, seeking entrance 
to the realms of light. The black wings of his imagination are 
flapping at the gates of doom., or swooping like an avenging deity 
along the dread Plutonian shore, where Tartarean caverns re-echo 
a myriad groans and sighs, rumbling their deep diapason of hope- 
less, helpless sorrow in that dismal concavity of endless woe. At 
the unutterable horror of such scenes the heart sickens and re- 
volts ; and yet, drawn by the spell of a terror so subtle, so resist- 
less, so profound and undefined, we must turn and look, and look 
again. And then, passing from the bhghted regions of the 
damned, anon he soars aloft on pinions of eternal light to sing 
his deathless song of Paradise — 

''As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form. 
Swells from, the vale and midway leaves the storm. 
Though round its breast the rolhng clouds are spread 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 



66 DANTE 

Says Dr. Richard Garnett in his Italian Literature: *'He 
moves through hfe a great, lonely figure, estranged from human 
fellowship at every point, a citizen of eternity, misplaced and ill- 
starred in time; too great to mingle with his age, or, by conse- 
quence, to be of much practical service to it; too embittered and 
austere to manifest in action the ineffable tenderness which may 
be clearly read in his writings; one whose friends and whose 
thoughts are in the other world, while he is yet more keenly alive 
than any other man to the realities of this ; one whose greatness 
impressed the world from the first and whom it does not yet fully 
know after the study of six hundred years." They know him 
best who fully understand the scholastic teachings of his great 
contemporaries, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Duns 
Seotus. The nature of his epic style is apparent from the Corn- 
media, as Dante and Virgil enter the infernal gate: 

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here!" 
These words in somber color I beheld 
Written upon the summit of a gate. 

He led me in among the secret things ; 
There sighs, complaints and ululations loud 
Resounded through the air without a star, 
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat. 
Languages diverse, horrible dialects, 
Accents of anger, words of agony. 
And voices high and hoarse, with sound ot hands, 
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on 
Forever in that air, forever black. 
Even as the sand doth when the whirlwind breathes. 

It was the high prerogative of this super-spirit to pass eter- 
nal judgment on the souls of men. The audacity of the concep- 
tion in its very daring is sublime. The project, lightly essayed, 
would have been an impious profanation. It almost savored of 
attempting the throne of the Infinite. Who could dare to hold 



DANTE 67 

>vithin his hand the scales of eternal justice? None — none but 
the proud and melancholy soul of Dante ! And six hundred years 
of human thought have all but decreed his judgments *'just and 
righteous altogether." Let us view but a single one of his judg- 
ments; and let the reader answer if it be just or no: 
«* ^ * rpj^jg miserable fate 
Suffer the wretched souls of those who lived 
Without praise or blame, with that ill band 
Of angels mix'd, who nor rebellious proved, 
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves 
Were only. * * * 
These of death 
No hope may entertain ; and their blind life 
So meanly passes, that all other lots 
They envy. Fame of them the world hath none, 
Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both. 
Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by." 

— ('Inferno," Carey's Translation.) 

We can go no further with him no,w, but must leave him, with 
his Virgil, here. But the reader is adjured to follow where he 
leads — up the holy mount of the Purgatorio, and with Beatrice to 
the Promised Land. For, as Dean Church says, "Dante certainly 
did not intend to be read only in fine passages — to be properly 
understood, and properly appreciated, he must be read as a whole, 
D.nd studied as a whole." 

In fine, we may conclude with Macaulay, in his "Criticisms 
en the Principal Italian Writers : 

"The style of Dante is, if not his highest, his most peculiar 
excellence. I know nothing with which it can be compared. The 
noblest models of Greek com^position must yield to it. * * * I have 
heard the most eloquent statesman of the age remark that, next 
to Demosthenes, Dante is the writer who ought to be most atten- 
tively studied by every man who desires to attain oratorical ex- 
cellence." 



II. 

PETRARCH. 

Francesco Petrarch, father of the Renaissance, was born in 
1304 and died in 1374, after a career seldom or never parallelled 
in the literary annals of any nation. He was born at Arezzo while 
his father was an exile from Florence. Like so many of the 
Italian literati, young Petrarch was intended for the law, but his 
over-mastering passion for classical learning carried his talents 
to a higher court. 

Petrarch wrote more in Latin than in Italian, and prided 
himself chiefly upon his "Africa," a Latin poem in hexameters, 
in which he celebrated the adventures of Scipio Africanus. But 
7t is his sonnets that have shed imperishable glory upon his name. 
He did not invent the sonnet, but he furnished a model which has 
served as a pattern for all succeeding ages. In these Italian 
works, he established and perfected that pure and elegant Italian 
style which has suffered less change in the past five hundred years 
than it had experienced in the single century preceding him. 

''Dante and Petrarch are, as it were," says Hallam (Litera- 
ture of Europe), ''the morning stars of our modern literature." 
After Dante. Petrarch was the real creator of the Italian lan- 
guage. But his first great service to polite learning was the work 
of discovering, collating, copying and translating the manuscripts 
of the ancient classics, a labor to which he continuously applied 
himself with the most passionate ardour. He restored classical 
cntiquity to Italy, and through Italy to the world. Heeren, the 
great German authority, declares that the remainder of the ancient 
manuscripts would have been hopelessly lost if Petrarch had not 
appeared when he did. He is, therefore, beyond question, the 
restorer of polite learning, and the genuine father of the Renais- 
sance. He caught up anew the fires of ancient civilization, and 
rekindled them in the hearts of his countrymen. He brushed 

68 



PETRARCH 69 

the dust from the crumbling monuments of antiquity, and re- 
vealed for us the beauties of ancient art ; he touched the moulder- 
ing manuscripts of a bygone age, and they poured forth their 
golden flood of eloquence and song into the treasure-house of 
modern letters; he tore aside the veil of literary darkness that 
had for centuries beclouded the mind of man, and disclosed to 
our delighted vision the sun-crowned heights of Olympus. 

Petrarch had visited the seats of learning in Germany and 
France, and enjoyed a wider acquaintance among men of letters 
than any other literary man of his time. Chaucer knew him 
personally, and his influence upon English letters was immediate 
and extensive. Shakespeare mentions him in '''Rcmeo and Juliet.'* 
In 1570 we find Ascham, in "The Scholemaster," voicing the 
unique complaint that the people of England had begun to hold 
*'in more reverence the triumphes of Petrarche than the Genesis 
of Moses ; they make more account of Tullies offices than S. Paules 
epistles; of a tale in Bocace than a storie of the Bible." Quite 
so, indeed. ''These bee the inchantementes of Circes," he says, 
"brought out of Italie to niarre mens maners in England." And 
old Puttenham, in "The Arte of English Poesie " declares: "In 
the latter end of the same king (Henry the eight) reigne, sprong 
up a new company of courtly makers — who having travailed into 
Italie, and there tasted the sweete and stately measures and stile 
cf Dante, Arioste, and Petrarche, they greatly poHshed our rude 
and homely maner of vulgar Poesie." One of these "courtly 
makers" was the Earl of Surrey, whom Taine calls "the English 
Petrarch" 

But there is no English Petrarch, and there will never be. 
His sonnets to Laura are as inimitible as are the sublime creations 
of Dante. In the crucible of his genius, the lam.bent flame of an 
undying love becomes a supernal passion, with all dross of lust 
or taint of grossness or sensuality forever purged away. Hallam 
says : "It has never again been given to man, nor will it probably 
be given, to dip his pen in those streams of etherial purity which 
have made the name of Laura immortal." 

Adored throughout Italy, Petrarch was the peculiar divinity 



70 PETRARCH 

of the Florentines. In 1540 the Academy of Florence w^s insti- 
tuted for the sole purpose of perfecting the Tuscan language by 
the study of the poems of Petrarch. The critics of the period set 
him up as a model of literary perfection, without flaw or defect, 
and he was worshipped as a literary idol. Commentaries were 
written upon almost every word, and whole volumes upon a single 
sonnet. 

Never was genius so amply and so spontaneously rewarded 
as in the case of Petrarch. He numbered among his friends and 
patrons the famous Colonni family, the Visconti, the Carrara 
family of Padua, the Corregi of Parma, king Robert of Naples and 
the Doge of Venice. Pope Clement VI. conferred upon him one 
cr tw^o sinecure benefices, and would have made him a bishop if 
lie had taken holy orders. The same pontiff offered him the 
post of apostolical secretary, and the offer was renewed by Pope 
Innocent VI. In 1340 he was invited to both Rome and Paris to 
receive the laurel crown. He chose Rome, w^here, on Easter Sun- 
day, 1341, he was solemnly crowned, amid the greatest possible 
pomp and splendor. Nothing in the entire history of Italy re- 
flects a finer glory upon the Italian people than their voluntary 
adulation of the great author of the purest love-poems the world 
has ever known. 

Much has been written upon the subject of Laura and of the 
nature of the poet's attachment for her. Byron asks, in the 8th 
stanza of the third Canto of his Don Juan: 

''Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, 
He would have written sonnets all his life?" 

But the inquiry scarcely concerns us now. The Academy of Fer- 
rara, after full investigation, solemnly decreed the Platonic purity 
of Petrarch's devotion. It is highly probable that Laura, while 
having an actual, physical basis of fact (not being, as some have 
supposed, a mere figment of poetic imagination),, was in the con- 
ception of Petrarch more of an ideal personage, in the nature of 
a feminine abstraction, like Dante's Beatrice, Surry's Geraldine, 
Sidney's Stella, or Tasso's Leonora, — not women, but woman in 
general — although each actually existed to inspire a poet's love. 



PETRARCH 71 

Boccaccio's Maria, to be sure, must be placed in a category some- 
what less Platonic. Petrarch was not a skeptic like Boccaccio, 
but throughout his career firmly professed his Christian faith. 
It is not our proper function to further judge his morals now. 
Enough for us the chastened note, the subdued pathos, the somber 
sweetness, the solemn, penitential beauty of the song he sings : 

Yon nightingale, whose strain so sweetly flows, 
Mourning her ravished young or much-loved mate, 

A soothing charm o'er all the valleys throws 

And skies, with notes well tuned to her sad state. 
— (Sonnet XLIIL, 'To Laura in Death.'^ 

Or this, from his "Triumph of Eternity" : 

Those spacious regions where our fancies roam, 
Pain'd by the past, expecting ills to come, 
In some dread moment, by the fates assigned, 
Shall pass away, nor leave a rack behind ; 
And Time's revolving wheel shall lose at last 
The speed that spins the future and the past: 
And, sovereign of an undisputed throne, 
Awful eternity shall reign alone." 

And thus he views, with Christian fortitude, the end of all (To 
Laura in Death, Canzone V., St. 6) : 

For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, 
And who can rightly die needs no delay. 






III. 

BOCCACCIO. 

Giovanni Boccaccio, the father of the novel, was born 131S 
and died 1375. Gay, garrulous, amorous old Boccaccio, the sport 
of passion and the slave of lust! He can now hardly be read in 
iinexpurgated form ; he is for the most part unfit for publication 
at the present time, in circles where moral puritj is desired ; but, 
for all that, there can be no complete knowledge of Italian litera- 
ture without at least a partial knowledge of Boccaccio. Without 
question, he is one of the really great figures of Tuscan litera- 
ture. Some authorities, indeed, place him as the third great 
figure of Italian literature, outranked by none but Dante and 
Petrarch.- The remarkable fluidity of his purhng style, swift, 
rapid and sparkling, marks him as the creator of classic Italian 
prose, and his mother tongue owes its earliest model of grace and 
refinement to his pen. 

His love affairs were as numerous as they were discreditable. 
But his *Tiammetta," the poetic name which he conferred upon 
Maria, daughter of King Robert of Naples, inspired him to write 
his "Filocopo," his "Ameto," and his ^Tiammetta," all which 
were designed to celebrate her charms. He wrote many stories 
and poems, and a life of Dante. But his most famous work is the 
Decameron, a collection of one hundred tales. He imagines 
these stories as being related by a party of ten refugees from 
The plague at Florence. He also wrote a history of the plague, 
and likewise translated many of the Greek and Latin authors into 
Italian. In the labor of discovering, rescuing and translating 
ancient manuscripts he was almost as indefatigable as his friend 
Petrarch, under whose influence he fell at the age of thirty-seven. 
He seems thereafter to have abandoned his wayward life, and to 
have devoted his later energies to the purposes of a serious 
scholarship. Following the leadership of Petrarch he became a 
leader in the humanistic revival then upon its upward surge. It 

72 



BOCCACCIO 73 

Tvas at his suggestion that Lorenzo Pilato made the first trans- 
lation of Homer into Latin. 

In popularity, the collection of tales in the Decameron has 
never been surpassed in the history of the world's literature. It 
lias never, indeed, been equalled in popularity, if we except Chau- 
<:;er's Canterbury Tales ; and, as is well known, Chaucer was deeply 
indebted to Boccaccio, as were Shakespeare, Moliere, Fontaine 
and others- It appears that Boccaccio fully repented of the 
errors of his youth. Upon the advice of a dying priest, he was 
about to retire from the world and join a monastic order, when 
he was dissuaded from this course by his friend Petrarch. 

Boccaccio was highly honored by his admiiing countrymen 
of Florence, and he represented his people upon many diplomatic 
missions. The object of one of these missions was to extend to 
Petrarch an official invitation to take up his residence in Florence. 
But the highest honor his city ever conferred upon him, and a 
most fitting dignity, too, was bestowed in 1373, two years before 
his death, when he was appointed to expound the "Divinia Com- 
media" of Dante, at a salary of one hundred golden florins per. 
annum. Had his life been spared for a few years it is not to be 
doubted that his lectures upon Dante would have developed into 
an interesting and scholarly work, vastly exceeding in value much 
that has been written upon this most glorious product of the 
middle ages. But his fame rests upon the Decameron. 

"Among many views in which this epoch-making book may 
be regar led," says F. M. Warren, in his History of the Novel 
Previous to the Sixteenth Century, "is that of an alliance between 
the elegant and superfine literature of courts and the vigorous 
but homely literature of the people. Nobles and ladies, accus- 
tomed to far-fetched and ornate compositions like the Tilocopo', 
were made able by the 'Decameron' to hear the same stories 
which amused the common people, told in a style which, too, the 
imeducated could appreciate and enjoy, but purged of much rough- 
ness and vulgarity and told in the only clear, forcible prose that 
had yet been produced. This is Boccaccio's best defense against 
the charge of licentiousness which has been so misconstruingljr 



74 BOCCACCIO 

laid against him. He markedly did not write for the purpose of 
stimulating the passions, but reproduced the ordinary talk of 
moments of relaxation, giving it the attraction of a pure and 
classic style." All which may be true, and to some extent is 
undoubtedly true. But, none the less, men make the morals of 
the ages in which they live, and we cannot doubt that, had Boc- 
caccio so desired, he could, without detracting from their literary 
beauty, have made his tales as pure as the love-poems of Petrarch, 
a product of the same age that gave us the Decameron. The same 
age, also, gave us the matchless moral philosophy of St. Thomas 
Aquinas. But what is here said is not designed to in anywise 
question the literary value of Boccaccio nor his position as not 
only the founder of the novel, but the greatest novelist of Italy 
up to the lime of Allesandro Mansoni, who died in 1873, and whose 
'*I Promessa Sposi" is doubtless better known today than any 
Italian book since the Divine Comedy, and remains to this day 
as the greatest romance of Italian prose. 



IV. 
TASSO. 

Torquato Tasso, the greatest epic poet of the modern ages, 
was born at Sorrento, Naples, in 1544, and died at the monastery 
of St. Onofrio, in Rome, in 1595. His father, a poet of respectable 
talents — and not without the temporal misfortmies which so often 
attend such distinction — destined young Torquato for the law. 
But the youthful poet, while outwardly engrossed with his legal 
studies, was secretly occupied with the composition of his "Rinal- 
00," a romantic poem in twelve cantos, which was received with 
incredible applause throughout Italy. Tasso had not then at- 
tained his eighteenth year. In one of the closing stanzas of the 
piece, he thus alludes to his youth, and to the difficulties under 
which he has worked: 

"Thus have I sung in battlefield and bower, 
Rinaldo's cares, and prattled through my page, 

While other studies claim'd the irksome hour. 
In the fourth lustre of my verdant age ; 

Studies from which I hoped to have the power 
The wrongs of adverse fortune to assuage; 

ITngrateful studies, whence I pine away 

Unknown to others, to myself a prey." 

Sir William Blackstone (author of the famous "Commentaries"), 
when he gave up literature for the law, wrote the poem, "A 
Lawyer's Farewell to His Muse." But this historical romance of 
Tasso's proved to be the muse's farewell to the law. From that 
time forth, young Tasso's studies, diligently prosecuted at vari- 
ous schools, were wholly literary and philosophical. The dedica- 
tion of his "Rinaldo" to the Cardinal d'Este, brought him to the 
favorable notice of the great house of Este, one of whose mem- 

75 



76 , TASSO 

bers, Alphonso II., was sovereign duke of Ferrara. He soon ac- 
cepted an invitation from the duke to enter his service, and pro- 
ceeded to the court of Ferrara, the scene of his glory and his grief. 

For some years Tasso was the chief glory of this brilliant 
Tend luxurious court. Every honor was paid him that was due to 
the first poet of his day. In a clime so congenial hisr fertile genius 
produced with ease. Here he brought forth his great pastoral 
drama, the **Aminta," a pastoral worthy of Virgil or Theocritus, 
and which, if he had written nothing else, would have forever 
enshrined his name among the world's great poets. Meanwhile 
he was rapidly completing the great temple of his dreams, the 
"Gerusalemme Liberata" — Jerusalem Delivered — the great metri- 
cal story of the Crusades. This vast work, in twenty cantos, is 
the master-piece of a master mind. It is pre-emimently the one 
incontestably great epic poem of the Age of Chivalry; a literary 
labyrinth of knightly deeds, untainted love and Christian zeal. 

Tasso, of course, cannot be said to equal Homer in poetic fire ; 
but Voltaire insists that he is superior to Homer in the choice of 
his subject. The gloomy grandeur of this stanza, from the fourth 
canto, where Satan summons his infernal band, is seldom sur- 
passed in the whole range of epic literature: 

'Its hoarse alarm the Stygian trumpet sounded 
Through the dark dwellings of the damn'd ; the vast 
Tartarean caverns tremblingly rebounded. 
Blind air rebellowing to the dreary blast ; 
Hell quaked with all its millions ; never cast 
Th' ethereal skies a discord so profound. 
When the red lightning's vivid flash was past ; 
Nor ever with such tremors rock'd the ground." 
The reader will note how well the words portray the very 

f^ounds and motions described in this passage. This is decidedly 
Homeric, this trait being a capital feature of Homer. The intro- 
duction of Satan in the fourth canto, from which we have just 
quoted, is productive of exceedingly striking effects, and has been 



TASSO ' 77 

i/nitated by Milton. The stories of knight-errantry, the enchant- 
ments, charms and con juries which characterize the wild, rich 
fancy of the chivalric age have been much criticized in Tasso; 
and yet, in this regard, the chief difference between his romance 
and that of Homer and Virgil is simply this: Tasso's is the ro- 
mance of Christianity; theirs is the romance of paganism. As 
compared with Virgil, Tasso is deficient in tenderness; yet we 
search Virgil in vain for a sweeter picture of rustic placidity than 
this, in the seventh canto, when Erminia is awakened in her 
shepherds' retreat: 

**She slept, till in her dreaming ear the bowers 

Whisper'd, the gay birds warbled of the dawn; 

The river roar'd; the winds to the young flowers 

Made love ; the blithe bee wound its dulcet horn '- 

Roused by the mirth and melodies of morn. 

Her languid eyes she opens, and perceives 

The huts of shepherds on the lonely lawn; 

While seeming voices, 'twixt the waves and leaves, 

Call back her scattered thoughts, again she sighs and grieves." 

An astute and discriminating English critic has very properly 
observed* 'The Jerusalem is, in rank and dignity, the third regu- 
lar epic poem in the world; and comes next to the Illiad and 
Aeneid." As Lamartine so beautifully says: ''Urged by piety no 
less than by the muse, Tasso dreamed of a crusade of poetic genius, 
F. spiring to equal by the glory and the sanctity of his songs, the 
c/usades of the lance he was about to celebrate." Indeed, a pri- 
n ary characteristic of Tasso's genius was a deep and somber 
-^Dirituality. The Italian critic, Corniani, places the prose of 
Tasso almost on a level with the poetry. "We find in it," he says, 
"dignity, rhythm, elegance, and purity without affectation, and 
perspicuity without vulgarity. He is never trifling or verbose, 
Uke his contemporaries of that century, but endeavors to fill every 
part of his discourses with meaning." 

Of the seven terrible years he spent in a mad-house at Fer- 



78 TASSO 

rara, one shudders to think. He was imprisoned there by order 
of the Duke, whose only pubUshed excuse was that he was de- 
taining Tasso for the purpose of "curing" him of his insanity. 
But the real purpose of Tasso's incarceration will, in all proba- 
bility, forever remain a mystery, as baffling as the motive which 
exiled Ovid from the court of Augustus. It is hardly possible 
that any alienist of even that crude age, would have recommended 
an underground dungeon for this purpose ; yet it was in an under- 
ground ceil that the Duke of Ferrara buried for seven years the 
most sublime genius of the age. During this unhappy period 
portions of the Jerusalem were first published, from manuscripts 
stolen from the poet. The growing insanity of the unhappy poet, 
and his romantic love of Leonora, are portrayeri with great poetic 
beauty and spiritual charm by Goethe, in his drama ''Torquato 
Tasso," wherein (Act II., Sc. 1) he makes the poet speak in this 
fashion of his greatest work: 

"Whatever in my song doth reach the heart 

And find an echo there, I owe to one, 
• And one alone ! No image undefined 

Hover'd before my soul, approaching now 

In radiant glory to retire again. 

I have myself, with mine own eyes, beheld 

The type of every virtue, every grace; 

What I have copied thence will aye endure; 
' The heroic love of Tancred to Clorinda, 

Erminia's silent and unnoticed truth, 
'; Sophronia's greatness and Olinda's woe; 

These are not shadows by illusion bred ; 

I know they are eternal, for they are." 
Final-y, upon the petition of Pope Sixtus V., and others, 
Tasso was released, to spend the remainder of his Hfe chiefly at 
Kome and Naples. Here he was the recipient of every honor that 
ambition could covet or genius desire. He was entertained as a 
o-uest at the Vatican. The mansions of the great were opened to 



TASSO 79 

him. Wealth and honors were showered upon him. With a soul 
chastened by sorrow and sweetened by adversity, he continued 
his hterary work. He was to have been crowned with the laurel 
crown at the capitol (the first to receive that honor since Pet* 
rarch), but before the event transpired, death sealed his honors 
and relieved him of his cares. He died surrounded by the monks 
OT the monastery, and his last w^ords were: "Into thy hands, 
Lord !'' He made the precepts of Christian doctrine the practice 
of his life ; and, as one biographer observes, ''the darkness of his 
fate had a tendency to turn his views beyond this world, as night, 
which hides the earth, reveals the sky/' 

In his later years Tasso pubHshed the "Gerusalemme Con- 
quistata," greatly inferior to his other work, but he imagined it 
to be superior; just as Milton mistakenly preferred his 'Taradise 
Regained" to the 'Taradise Lost." 



V. 
ARIOSTO. 

Ludivico Ariosto, one of the greatest names in Italian litera- 
ture and one of the great poets of the world, was born at Reggio, 
Sept. 8, 1474, and died at Ferrara June 6, 1533. Like Petrarch, 
Tasso and Boccaccio, Ariosto was early destined for the law, but 
abandoned his irksome studies after five years of futile and mis- 
directed effort. The untimely death of his father cast upon the 
shoulders of the young poet the burden of caring for a large 
family. 

Like that of Tasso, the career of Ariosto was begun by enter- 
ing the service of the House of Este. During the ten years of 
his service under the Cardinal d'Este, while engaged principally 
m diplomatic missions and military operations, he completed his 
master work, the Orlando Furioso, which will stand for all time 
as the great romance of the Age of Chivalry. The poem consists 
cf about 5,000 stanzas, in forty-six cantos. Dismissed by the 
Cardinal, the poet cast his lot with the Cardinal's brother, the 
Duke of Ferrara, to whose service he devoted the remainder of 
his life. 

In addition to his principal work, Ariosto also wrote comedies, 
satires, sonnets and other poems, all which, though exhibiting a 
high order of genius, have been so eclipsed by his great master- 
piece that they are but little known. The Orlando Furioso has 
long been recognized as the greatest work of its kind in any lan- 
s,uage. Twenty-five years after Ariosto's death Bernardo Tasso, 
father of the immortal author of the "Jerusalem Delivered," and 
himself a poet of distinction, wrote of the tremendous popularity 
of Ariosto's great poem: "There is neither scholar nor artisan, 
boy nor girl, nor old man, who is contented with reading it only 
©nee. Do you not hear people every day singing these stanzas 
in the streets and in the fields ? I do not believe that in the same 

80 



ARIOSTO 81 

length of time as had passed since this poem was given to the 
world, thj<t there have been printed or pubhshed or seen so many- 
Homers 07- Virgils as Turiosos'." 

But Ariosto's popularity has been by no means confined to 
his native land. Next to Homer, he has been the favorite poet 
of Europe. More than sixty editions of the Orlando Furioso were 
published in the sixteenth century. When Galileo was asked how 
he acquired the perspicuity and grace which so distinguished his 
philosophical writings, he rephed: *'By the continual study of 
Ariosto." One of the most learned critics of modern times, 
Henry Hallam, in his ''Literature of Europe" (Vol. I„ Chap. IV., 
Sect, n.) does not hesitate to say: "The Orlando Furioso, as a 
jrreat single poem, has been very rarely surpassed in the living 
records of poetry. He must yield to three, and only three, of 
his predecessors. He has not the force, simplicity, and truth to 
nature of Homer, the exquisite style and sustained majesty of 
Virgil, nor the originality and boldness of Dante. The most ob- 
vious parallel is Ovid, whose Metamorphoses, however, are far 
excelled by the Orlando Furioso, not in fertility of invention, or 
variety of images and sentiments, but in purity of taste, in grace 
of language, and harmony of versification." 

The seven satires of Ariosto were not published until after 
his death. They are written in the manner of Horace, whose 
work they fairly approximate in easy grace and Epicurean cheer- 
fulness. Tiraboschi, an eminent Italian critic, places the satires 
of Ariosto at the head of all poetry of that class. His comedies, 
like so much of the early ItaHan comedy, are apparently based 
upon Plautus. However, when Ariosto is mentioned by critics, 
it is always the Orlando Furioso which is discussed. 

For centuries there has been a controversy among Italian 
critics over the relative merits of Tasso and Ariosto. Each is 
great in his kind. But the Jerusalem is an epic, judged by every 
classic rule. The Orlando is not ; it is simply a wonderful metrical 
romance, although portions of it are truly epical. To quote Mr. 
Hallam again: 'The finest stanzas in Ariosto are fully equal to 
any in Tasso, but the latter has by no means so many feeble lines. 



82 AEIOSTO 

Yet his language, though never affectedly obscure, is not so pel- 
lucid, and has a certain refinement which makes us sometimes 
pause to perceive the meaning. Whoever reads Ariosto slowly, 
will probably be offended by his negligence ; whoever reads Tasso 
quickly, v/ill lose something of the elaborate finish of his style." 
Sir Walter Scott was called ''the Ariosto of the north." But 
he was not. Spenser is the English poet most naturally to be 
compared with Ariosto, for "Fierce wars and faithful loves did 
moralize the song" of both. But Spenser lacks the gaiety, warmth 
and ardor of the great Italian, although equalling him in rhetori- 
cal splendor and excelling him in morality. 

In one view of the subject, the most striking feature of 
Ariosto is the constant shifting of style and scene. In narration 
and description he has never been surpassed. His variety is end- 
less, his versatiHty most profuse; comic and satiric; heroic, ma- 
jestic, tender, licentious — from lively to severe, his sportive 
imagination bounds and ripples along through his forty thousand 
lines, excelling in whatsoever he sees fit to attempt, always suit- 
ing his style to his subject, and always painting his moving pic- 
tures in smooth and melodious verse. 

As Virgil essayed a continuation of Homer's Illiad, so does 
Ariosto assum^e to continue Boiardo's Orlando Inamorato. The 
subject is the many chivalric adventures of Orlando who became 
insane through love for Angelica. He is, however, finally re- 
stored to sanity. We quote from the 39th Canto: 

''When to his former self he was restored, 
Of wiser and of manlier mind than e'er. 

From love as well was freed the enamored lord ; 
And she, so gentle deemed, so fair whilere, "^ 

And by renowned Orlando so adored 

Did but to him a worthless thing appear. 

What he through love had lost, to re-acquire 

Was his whole study, was his whole desire." 
Although the Orlando Furioso was first published in English a 
few years after the death of Shakespeare, it is believed that the 
first really satisfactory translation was by Rose, in 1823, and this 
"trsion is still the most popular among readers of English. 



VI. 
BOIARDO. 

To the casual reader Boiardo is of interest chiefly because of 
his work having suggested to Ariosto the Orlando Furioso; but 
to the student of Italian literature he is also valuable upon his 
own account. 

Matteo Maria Boiardo, Count of Scandiano, was born about 
1430 and died in 1494. Educated at the University of Ferrara, 
he entered the service of Duke Borso oi. Ferrara, and continued in 
the service of his successor, Duke Ercole. Boiardo was one of 
the most finished scholars of his time, although Hallam holds him 
to be inferior in scholarship to Ariosto ; at least, he thinks xA.riosto 
more conversant ^v^ith the Latin poets. He was the author of 
many dramas, song and other poems. He also made a transla- 
tion of Herodotus into Italian. 

Boiardo is known to posterity principally because of his 
greatest work, the "'Orlando Inammorato," which, however, was 
unfinished at his death. The poem deals with the Charlemagne 
cycle, and details the adventures and chivalric love of Orlando for 
Angelica, an Oriental princess. Three editions of the poem were 
published within the twenty years following Boiardo's death, and 
within a hundred years it had passed through sixteen editions. 
Three bocks were added to the poem by Agostini, but the addi- 
tions in no way equal the context of Boiardo. The poem was 
early translated into French, and editions now exist in all the 
great modern languages. 

Francesco Berni, a noted Italian poet who died in 1536, who 
was the real perfecter of the humorous poetry of Italy, and whose 
manner has been so happily imitated by Byron in "Beppo" and 
"Don Juan," transformed Boiardo's great poem into a burlesque 
which has all but taken the place of the original work. In 1845 
another version was brought out by Lodovico Domenichi which 

83 



84 BOIARDO 

was likewise more popular than the original, though vastly in- 
ferior. 

Milton was familiar with the romance of Boiardo, and di- 
rectly refers to it in the following beautiful lines from Book III. 
of his 'Taradise Regained": 

"Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, 

When Agrican with all his northern powers 

Besieged Albracca, as romancers tell. 

The city of Gallaphrone, from whence to win 

The fairest of her sex, Angelica 

His daughter, sought by many prowest knights. 

Both Paynim, and the peers of Charlemagne, 

Such and so numerous was their chivalry." 

Two of the Italian critics, Pellegrini and Castelvetro, have 
roundly berated Ariosto for building on the foundations of 
Boiardo- Ariosto, indeed, appears to have harbored no other de- 
sign, originally, than that of carrying forward the story as Agos- 
tini had assumed to do before him, but in far better style than 
Agcstini was capable of employing; having written the first few 
cantos of the Furioso merely, as he said, to please and amuse his 
friends. The story of the Inammorato must be first read, if we 
would fully understand and appreciate the Furioso. But, although 
more plec;sing and various, the inventions of Ariosto are less 
original than those of Boiardo. 

Boiardo wrote numerous shorter poems, distinguished for 
their transparency and grace, but the fame of all these was so 
completely eclipsed by his greater work that they are now but 
little known. Typical of these shorter works, and second to none 
in its beauty, is this charming sonnet, entitled "Beautiful Gift": 



BOIARDO 

Beautiful gift, and dearest pledge of love, 
Woven by that fair hand whose gentle aid 
Alone can heal that wound itself hath made, 

And to my wandering life a sure guide prove ; 
dearest gift all others far above 

Curiously wTought in many-colored shade, 

Ah. why with thee has not the spirit stayed, 

That with such tasteful skill to form thee strove ? 

Why have I not that lovely hand with thee? 
Why have I not with thee each fond desire. 

That did such passing beauty to thee give? 
Through life thou ever shalt remain with me, 

A thousand tender sighs thou shalt inspire, 

A thousand kisses day and night receive. 



VII. 
MICHELANGELO. 

Michelangelo Buonarroti (called by the old English writers- 
Michael A^ngelo) was born in 1475 and died, at the age of eighty- 
nine, in the year 1564, after the most brilliant career in the his- 
tory of art. His life truly exemplified Lavatar's definition of art 
as ''nothing but the highest sagacity and exertion of human na- 
ture," and students of his manifold creations cannot doubt that 
his triple triumphs in painting, sculpture and architecture would 
at least have been equalled if not surpassed by the magic product 
of his pen if he had chosen to devote the sublime activities of his 
soul to verbal expression alone. Even as it was, his poems ap- 
pear to have been as highly esteemed in his own life-time as were 
his other works of art. 

Addison has remarked the great affinity between designing 
and poetry. Schelling says that "Architecture is frozen music;" 
and Longfellow notes that 'The picture that approaches sculpture 
Tiearest is the best picture." Whether in painting, or music, or 
sculpture, or literature, or histrionic art, the highest creations of 
genius are but blossomings of the soul, and although their tints 
may vary and each bloom exhale a fragrance differing from the 
rest, all are grown from the same bounteous Tree of Life of which 
they are the fruits and flowers. Great works of art are, indeed, 
^'separate as billows, but one as the sea;" and they adorn the 
firmament with their deathless beauty as so many golden suns, 
differing "as one star differeth from another in glory." 

In any enlightened consideration of the literary work of 
Michelangelo we should remember, as Symonds observes, that 
"The love of beauty, the love of Florence, and the love of Christ, 
are the three main motives of his poetry." They were, indeed, 
the motives of his life. The following excerpt from Edgar Allen 
Foe's "The Poetic Principle," is peculiarly applicable to all the 
artistic creations of this great Florentine : "An immortal instinct, 

86 



MICHELANGELO 87 

deep withm the spirit of man, is a sense of the beautiful. It is at 
once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. 
It is no mere appreciation of the beauty before us, but a wild 
effort to reach the beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic pre- 
science of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multi- 
form combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to 
attain a portion of that loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, 
appertain to Eternity alone. * * * The struggle to apprehend 
supernal Loveliness, — this struggle on the part of souls fittingly 
constituted, has given to the world all that which the world has 
ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic." 

Intellectually, Michelangelo was a child of Dante, whose 
career inspired two of his most powerful sonnets. One of these 
(translated by Symonds) is as follows : 

From heaven his spirit came, and robed in clay 
The realms of justice and of mercy trod, 
Then rose a living man to gaze on God, 
That he migTit make the truth as clear as day. 

For that pure star that brightened with his ray 
The undeserving nest where I was born, 
The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn ; 
None but his maker can due guerdon pay. 

I speak of Dante, whose high work remains 
Unknown, unhonored by that thankless brood, 
Who only to just men deny their wage. 

Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains, 
Against his exile coupled with his good 
I'd gladly change the world's best heritage ! 

Here we catch the same note of sadness that is chiselled with a 
perfection so exquisite and sublime in the "Pieta" in St. Peter's, 
the first ^roup in modern sculpture; the same majesty which we 
note in the figures of the Sistine Chapel, "the greatest piece of 
work ever done by painter's hand;" and the same heroic dignity 



88 MICHELANGELO 

that reposes in the stern countenance of his "Moses" (done for 
the mausoleum of Pope Julius IL), fittingly termed the "greatest 
colossal statue in modern art." Truly may it be said, in the words 
of Wordsworth, that the statuary of Michelangelo was but "the 
marble index of a mind forever voyaging through strange seas 
of thought, alone." 

He o-ave the last years of his life chiefly to architecture, 
planning many buildings, in both Florence and Rome, besides the 
fortifications of Rome. He had previously been superintendent 
of the fortifications at Florence. In 1546 or 1547 he was ap- 
pointed chief architect of St. Peter's, to which task he devoted 
the last eighteen years of his life. The vast dome of St. Peter's, 
the noblest work of its kind in existence, is his design. For his 
work upon St. Peter's he refused to accept any compensation what- 
ever, deeming the task a Christian privilege and a religious duty. 
It was this mighty performance which, in part, prompted Emer- 
son to write : 

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome 

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 

Wrought in a sad sincerity : 

Himself from God he could not free: 

He builded better than he knew; 

The conscious stone to beauty grew." 

Of his three hundred and fifty figures in the Sistine Chapel, 
Sidney Colvin writes: "His sublimity, often in excess of the 
occasion, is here no more than equal to it; moreover, it is com- 
bined with the noblest elements of grace, even of tenderness. 
Whatever the soul of this great Florentine, the spiritual heir of 
Dante, with Christianity of the Middle Age ' not shaken in his 
mind, but expanded and transcendentalized by the knowledge and 
love of Plato — whatever the soul of such a man, full of suppressed 
tenderness and righteous indignation, and of anxious questionings 
of coming: fate, could conceive, that Michelangelo has expressed 
or shadowed forth in this great and significant scheme of paint- 
ings." 



MICHELANGELO 89 

Although his genius was of astonishing spontaneity, he at- 
tained his vast perfections by close application to his work. 
"Trifles make perfection," he said, "but perfection is no trifle." 
When he was eighty years of age he was discovered by Cardinal 
Farnese^ gazing raptly upon the ruins of the Coliseum, and saying, 
"I yet go to school, that I may learn something." The intensity 
of his labor is indicated in a sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoja, wherein 
he says, half humorously, of his work in the Sistine Chapel: 

Crosswise I bend me like a Syrian dow : 

Whence false and quaint, I know, 
Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye ; 
For ill can aim the gun that bends awry. 

Come then, Giovanni, try 
To succor my dead pictures and my fame ; 
Since foul I fare, and painting is my shame. 

Nearly all of his sonnets are addressed to friends. Some of 
the best, however, are upon religious subjects. Michelangelo was 
never married. A priest once asked him why. "I have only too 
much of a wife in this art of mine," he replied. "She has always 
kept me struggling on. My children will be the works I leave 
behind me. Even though they are worth naught, I shall live 
awhile in them." And live he shall, till Time shall be no more! 
His love for Vittoria Colonna, beautiful and touching, as we learn 
from the sonnets, was purely Platonic in character. A famous 
painting by Hermann Schneider shows the inspired Florentine, 
standing beside his statue of Moses, reading his sonnets to the 
woman he loved. To her he addressed many of his most beauti- 
ful verses^ and after she died his mournful expressions are said to 
equal some of the sonnets of Petrarch "To Laura in Death." Like 
that of Petrarch, the love of Michelangelo is not of earthly kind ; 
for, as he writes : 

Love fits the soul with wings, and bids her win 
Her flight aloft nor e'er to earth decline ; 
'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine 

Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within. 



VIII. 
MACHIAVELLL 

In his lecture on ''Historical Writing" Dr. Blair remarks that 
*'the country in Europe where the historical genius has shone 
forth with most luster, beyond doubt, is Italy." Beyond question, 
likewise, the first historian of Italy in the modern age, is Niccolo 
Machiavelli (born 1469, died 1527) ; and no writer, with the ex- 
ception of Montaigne, exerted so great an influence upon the age 
which followed him. 

Machiavelli undoubtedly ranks at the head of the prose 
writers of Italy. Taine, the French critic, calls him "the Thucy- 
dides of his age." His dramas, ''Mandragola" and "Clitia," bear 
z. striking resemblance to the Athenian comedies, and are ranked 
above those of Ariosto. His "Belphegor" is a masterpiece of its 
kind. His "History of Florence" is the first great historical work 
of modern times, is the greatest historical work produced during 
the age i»i which he lived, and clearly establishes his title as the 
father of modern historical writing. This work has taken its 
place among the historical classics of the world. Throughout 
all his works, the style of Machiavelli is distinguished for sim- 
plicity, clearness and strength. 

But, aside from his history, the fame of Machiavelli rests 
almost solely upon "The Prince," a treatise on practical politics, 
which he has reduced to a science — and a very unpopular science, 
too. But, to fully understand his political theories, one should 
read "The Prince" and the "Discourses on Livy" together. Speak- 
ing of the first of these works, Hallam says : "Without palliating 
the worst passages, it may be said that few books have been more 
misrepresented." The same critic continues : "His crime, in the 
eyes of the world, was to have cast away the veil i^t hypocrisy, 
the profession of a religious adherence to maxims which at the 
same time were violated." In other words, Machiavelli would 

90 



MACHIAVELLI 91 

have been more popular had he advocated the throtthng of weaker 
peoples under the high-sounding phrase of '^'self-determination/' 
or preached absolutism under the guise of freedom ! But Machia- 
velli was no hypocrite, and one need not be a monarchist to ac- 
credit him with the virtue of candor. He reasoned out a plan 
for the establishment of a powerful Italian state. His dream was 
of a united Italy. He knew that this ideal could never be at- 
tctined by the multitude of insignificant states then existing. 
And history has. since vindicated his judgment in this regard. 
Italy remained the prey of every foreign foe until it was united 
under a monarchical form of government. No one will contend 
that a monarchical form of government is necessarily the best 
possible government. It may, indeed, be the very worst. Of this 
fact, historical illustrations are numerous. One can pay too much 
for political power. But, considering the needs and wants of a 
particular people at a particular time, a strongly centralized state 
may be, while not ideal, yet the most practicable for achieving 
the ends desired. Whether a monarchy be desirable or not must 
depend upon the ideals and purposes of the people governed. 
Every people has the right to choose its own form of government. 
Solon of Athens, greatest of the Seven Wise men of Greece, ad- 
mitted that his Athenian constitution was not the best possible, 
but justilied it upon the theory that it was the best which the 
people wculd receive. A monarchy may be desirable from the 
viewpoint of expediency, and still be wrong as a matter of prin- 
ciple. Machiavelli does not advise a tyrannical form of govern- 
ment: He recommends no such thing. He does state that the 
love of the people is a better security for a ruler than any fortress. 

Machiavelli does not write, like Dr. Francis Lieber, upon 
"Political Ethics." In 'The Prince" he is not discussing ethics at 
all. He is simply discussing the means to an end, and that end 
was a un:ted Italy. It is matter of surprise that Machiavelh's 
"Prince" has been so misconstrued by so discriminating a scholar 
as Andrew Dickson White, who said, in his speech on Grotius, 
delivered at the peace conference at The Hague, in 1899: 

"The spirit which most thoroughly permeated the whole 



92 MACHIAVELLI 

world, whether in war or peace, when Grotius wrote, was the 
spirit of Machiavelli — unmoral, immoral. It had been dominant 
for more than a hundred years. To measure the service ren- 
dered by the theory of Grotius, we have only to compare Machia- 
velli's Trince,' with Grotius's 'De Jure Belli ac Pacis.^ * * * 
From his own conception of the attitude of the Divine Mind to- 
ward all the falsities of his time grew a theory of international 
morals wluch supplanted the principles of Machiavelli." 

Dr. White simply failed to grasp the intense nationalism of 
the remarkable Italian, as it was grasped by the great American 
lawyer and patriot, Ruf us Choate, "the Erskine of America", 
when in his address on "American Nationality," delivered at Bos- 
Ion on July 4, 1858, he asked: "What else formed the secret of 
the brief spell of Rienzi's power, and burned and sparkled in the 
poetry and rhetoric of his friend Petrarch, and soothed the dark 
hour of the grander soul of Machiavelli, loathing that Italy, and 
recalling that other day when *eight hundred thousand men 
sprang tj arms at the rumor of a Gallic invasion'?" Choate un- 
derstood Machiavelli ; where as White has only voiced the popular 
misconception. Thus Butler in his "Hudibras" writes : 

"Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick, 

Though he gave his name to our Old Nick." 
And note how Shakespeare falls afoul of history : In I. Henry VI., 
York speaks of Alencon, "that notorious Machiavel;" and in III. 
Henry VI., Gloucester speaks of "the murderous Macliiavel." To 
fully grasp the humor of this anachronism we should remember 
that Henry VI. died exactly ninety-eight years before Machiavelli 
was born. It requires a pretty bad reputation, indeed, to precede 
one's birth a hundred years. 

We have said that "The Prince" should be read with Machia- 
velli's "Discourses on Livy." The observation is reiterated. The 
"Discourses" are the more valuable of the two dissertations, and 
the latter serve, in great measure, to tone down the asperities of 
the former; although Macaulay, apparently, finds no good in 
either. The "Discourses" comprise three books, of 143 chapters. 
In this treatise, the greatest of its kind since Aristotle, the au- 



MACHIAVELLI 93 

thor founded a school of philosophical politics, and prepared the 
way for Bodin and Montesquieu in France, Lord Bacon and John 
Locke in England, and Francis Lieber in America. 

Machiavelli was a statesman, a diplomat, a political philoso- 
pher and a practical politician. . He was always honest and was 
always poor. The evil he is said to have voiced is often referred 
to by those who have never read him — but it is seldom or never 
quoted. Let us. quote some of the good in Machiavelli. To those 
who seek political honors only for selfish ends, we commend this 
axiom, from the ''Discourses" (IIL, 38) : "For titles do not re- 
flect honor on men, but rather men on their titles" — Perche non 
1 titoli illustrano gli uomini, ma gli uomini i titoli! That is not 
immoral ; nor is it ''unmoral" ; nor are these two phrases, from the 
same source: 

"There should be many judges; for few will always do the 
will of few." 

"For as laws are necessary that good manners may be pre- 
served, so there is need of good manners, that laws may be main- 
tained." And here is another Machiavellian maxim which all 
politicians will do well to heed : 

"Briims are of three generations, those that understand of 
"l^hemselves, those that understand when another shows them, 
and those that understand neither of themselves nor by the show- 
ing of ot)^ers." 



IX. 
METASTASIO. 

Pietro Metastasio was born at Rome January 13, 1698, and 
died at Vienna April 12, 1782. He is still one of the most popular 
poets of Italy. Metastasio (whose family name was Trapassi) , was 
of obscure parentage, but his genius early atoned for his humble 
birth. His youthful talents drew the attention of Gravina, the 
jurisconsult, who thenceforth assumed responsibility for his edu- 
cation. Gravina was devoted to the Greek drama, and soon com- 
municated his literary passion to the willing mind of his pupil. 
Never was the seed of poesy cast upon more fecund soil. 

At tl.e age of twenty-six Metastasio produced one of his most 
famous di'amas, *'La Dione abbandonata," which brought him to 
the notice of cultured Europe. Four years later, at the age of 
thirty, he was appointed to the office of "court poet" at Vienna. 
His fame throughout Europe was now established. His "La 
Dione," "II Catone" and "II Siroe" were known in every center 
of art and literature. While at Vienna he produced "Giuseppe 
riconosciuto," "II Demofoonte," and "OHmpiade." The melo- 
dramas "Clemenza di Tito" and "AttiHo Regolo," are among the 
best of his works. 

Metastasio wrote sixty-three dramas and forty-eight can- 
tatas, besides numerous elegies, canzonette, sonnets and transla- 
tions. His works have been translated into many languages, and 
frequently set to music by celebrated composers, his words lend- 
ing themselves most readily to operatic uses. The siyle of his 
dramas i^^ musical in a marked degree, combining with great 
beauty of sentim.ent the facile charms of lyrical grace and ele- 
gance. I he closeness and rapidity of his dialogue bear a strong 
resemblance to the classical Greek tragedy. The constant change 
of incident, the broken dialogue, the rapid expressions of passion, 
are sugg-^stive of the style of Guarini's. "Pastor Fido," which, in 
turn, harlis back to the "Aminta" of Tasso, who drew his pictures 

94 



METASTASIO 95 

directly trom the classic models of Ovid, Virgil and Theocritus. 
Editions of his works have been published at Florence, Turin, 
Genoa, Mantua, and Paris. 

In 1690 Giovanni Crescimbeni and Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina 
founded in Rome an academy called the Arcadia. Its purpose 
was to promote greater naturalness of expression in poetic forms. 
The Academy failed, but it did bring forth some good verse, 
(vritten ?n its three manners. In the first manner the sonnet 
and the madrigal were cultivated; in the second, that of love 
lyrics; in the third, that of the occasional poem. Mecaslasio was 
the most distinguished of all who shared in this movement. He 
began his career as a lyric poet of the second Arcadian manner. 
However, he is now remembered only for his operatic dramas, 
"masterpieces of a time when it was still considered necessary 
that the libretto of an opera should be a work of art.'' 

While Metastasio, as a whole, is little known in English, ex- 
cerpts from his plays have, because of their good sense and feel- 
ing, surmounted the barriers of all languages, and are known in 
every land and clime. For example, many who have had no op- 
portunity to read the ''Giueseppe riconosciuto," are familiar with 
this quotation from the play : "The canker which the trunk con- 
ceals is revealed by the leaves, the fruit or the flower" — a truth 
so sound as to become an axiom, and so poetically expressed that 
it cannot be forgotten. And this, from the same grear drama: 
*Tf our inward griefs were seen written on our brow, how many 
would be pitied who now are envied !" Let him say it in the style 
and idiomi so peculiarly his own : 

Se a ciascun V interno affanno 
Si leggesse in fronta Scritto, 
Quanti mai, che invidia fanno, 
Ci farebbero pieta! 

_ In aaother of his greater works, "La Clemenza di Tito," we 
find this noble sentiment: "To take away hfe is a power which 
the vilest of the earth have in common ; to give it belongs to gods 
and kings alone." Another of his phrases that has crept around 



96 METASTASIO 

the world is the following, from "II Trionfo di Clelia": '"Know 
that the slender shrub which is seen to bend, conquers when it 
yields to the storm." Still another characteristic phrase, illus- 
trating the author's pastoral elegance, is the following, from the 
"Alcide al Bivio": "That water which falls from some Alpine 
height is dashed, broken, and will murmur loudly, but grows 
limpid by its fall." In this sentence, as in others, we may better 
grasp the rapid movement, the short measure and the lilting 
music of Metastasio's operatic style, by viewing it in his native 
Italian: 

Queir onda, che ruina 
Dalla pendice alpina, 
Balza, si frange, a mormora 
Ma limpidia si fa. 



X. 

ALFIERI. 

According to Dr. Frederic Taber Cooper, Vittorio Alfieri 
(born 1749, died 1803) was the most important of the Italian 
dramatic noets. Matthew Arnold said that he was "a noble-mind- 
ed, deepb -interested man, but a monotonous poet." There is, in- 
deed, in all his works, an almost total absence of the rich color- 
ing, the ;?olden glow and Tuscan softness of classic Italian speech* 
He studied assiduously to prune his style, almost to the point of 
harshness. His dramas are erected upon the classical models* 
and in them we sometimes catch a distant echo of the thundering 
harp of Aeschylus. 

It vras his thought that the theatre should be "a school 
in which men might learn to be free, brave and generous, inspired 
by true virtue, full of love for their country, and in all their 
passions enthusiastic, upright and magnanimous. " Such he 
sought to make it. With him the love of freedom was a passion. 
His dream, Hke that of Petrarch and Machiavelh, was of a united 
Italy. But he hated king-craft in all its forms. His work bore 
fruit. No writer did more to achieve Italian unity. As Gioberti 
says, **the revival of civil order throughout the peninsula, the 
creation of a laic Italy, is due to Vittorio Alfieri, who, like a new 
Dante, was the true secularizer of the spirit of the Italian peo- 
ple, and i-rave to it that strong impulse which still lives and bears 
fruit." 

When we think of Alfieri, observes another Italian critic, we 
must bring ourselves back to the age in which he lived. "The 
regeneration of Italian character," says Mariotti, "was yet merely 
intellectual and individual, and Alfieri, was born from that class 
which was the last to feel the redeeming influence. Penetrated 
with the utter impossibihty of distinguishing himself by imme- 
diate action, he was forced to throw himself on the last resources 

97 



98 ALFIERI 

of literature. He had exalted ideas of its duties and influence; 
he had exalted notions of the dignity of man: — an ardent, 
though a vague and exaggerated love of liberty, and of the manly 
virtues which it is wont to foster. He invaded the stage. He 
wished to effect upon his contemporaries that revolution which 
his own soul had undergone. He wished to wake them from their 
long lethargy of servitude ; to see them thinking, willing, striving, 
resisting." Souls so obsessed with the spirit of liberty are not 
born to die. 

Alfieri published twenty-one tragedies, six comedies, one 
'*tramelOi2:edia" (a name invented by himself, and denoting a kind 
of tragi-comedy) , one epic poem in four cantos, many lyrical 
poems, numerous sonnets and odes, and sixteen satires, besides 
poetical translations of Virgil and Terence-, and parts of Aristo- 
phanes, Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus. He also wrote his 
autobiography, a work of remarkable excellence. His ''Misogallo,*' 
a memorial of his fierce hatred of France, was published afte* 
his death. 

The inspiration of Alfieri is political rather than poetic. His 
more powerful works are all designed to show that the best gov- 
ernment is one founded upon the consent of the governed. His 
hatred of arbitrary power was almost sublime in its intensity. 
The dedications of some of his dramas are as remarkable as any- 
thing contained in the plays. 'The First Brutus" was dedicated 
to George Washington, then in a few months to become the first 
president of the United States. It reads as follows: 

"The name of the Deliverer of America alone can stand i'" 
the title page of the tragedy of the Deliverer of Rome. — To 
you, most excellent and most rare Citizen, I dedicate that; with 
out first hinting at even a part of the so many praises due to your- 
self, which I now deem all comprehended in the'sole mention of 
your name. Nor can this my sHght allusion appear to you con- 
taminated by adulation; since, not knowing you by person, and 
living diis joined from you by the immense ocean, we have but 
too emphatically nothing in common between us but the love o 
glory. Happy are you, who have been able to build your glory 



ALFIERI 99 

on the sublime and eternal basis of love to your country, demon- 
strated b} actions. I, though not born free, yet having abandoned 
in time my Lares, and for no other reason than that I migh' 
be able to write loftily of Liberty — I hope by this means at least 
to have proved what might have been my love of country, if I 
had indeed fortunately belonged to one that deserved the name. 
In this single respect, I do not think myself wholly unworthy 
to mingle my name with yours." 

The dedication of his ''Agis" was to Charles L of England 
— or, rather, to the shade of that unfortunate prince — and in it 
he excor^ntes the British monarch most unmercifully. 

A fair specimen of his stern and simple style is the follow- 
ing excei-pt from "The First Brutus," where the body of the 
murdered Lucretia is brought into the Forum: 

"Brutus. — Then listen now to Brutus. The same dagger 
Which from her dying side he lately drew, 
Brutus now lifts ; and to all Rome he swears 
That which first on her very dying form 
He swore already. — While I wear a sword, 
While vital air I breathe, in Rome henceforth 
No Tarquin e'er shall put his foot — I swear it ; 
Nor the abominable name of king. 
Nor the authority, shall any man 
Ever again possess. — May the just gods 
Annihilate him here, if Brutus is not 
Lofty and true of heart! — Further I swear, 
Many as are the inhabitants of Rome, 
To make them equal, free, and citizens ; 
Myself a citizen and nothing more. 
The laws alone shall have authority. 
And I will be the first to yield them homage." 

Noble sentiments these, and nobly expressed. If lacking in 
poetic beituty, they at least lack nothing in patriotic fervor. But 



100 ALFIERI 

beauty Alfieri does possess, and that, too, in a high degree; but 
it is the statuesque beauty of cold marble, graceful in repose ; his 
lofty ideals, devoid of ornament, rigid and unbending as the 
sculptor's stone. In his essay on Lord Byron, Macaulay draws 
a parallel between Alfieri and Cowper. *'In their hatred of 
meretricious ornament," says he, "and of what Cowper calls 
'creamy ^smoothness,' they erred on the opposite side. Their 
style was too austere, their versification too harsh. ^ ^ '^^ The 
Intrinsic value of their poems is considerable. But the example 
which they set of mutiny against an absurd system was invalu- 
able. The part which they performed was rather that of Moses 
than that of Joshua. They opened the house of bondage ; but 
they did not enter the promised land." 

In Florence Alfieri met the Countess of Albany, wife of 
Charles Fdward Stewart, the British Pretender, «,nd won fror 
Charles the heart of his queen. The infatuation was mutual, and 
after the death of the Pretender, she lived with Alfieri, until his 
death. His ashes, and those of the woman he loved, now repose 
in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence, between the tombs of 
Michelancrelo and MachiavelH. 



PART FOUR. 



GREAT SPANISH AND 
PORTUGESE AUTHORS 



I. 


LOPE DE VEGA 


II. 


CERVANTES 


III. 


CAMOENS 


IV. 


QUEVEDO 


V. 


THE ARGENSOLAS 


VI. 


VILLEGAS 


VII. 


MONTALVO 


VIII. 


GUILLEN DE CASTRO 


IX. 


VICENTE 


X. 


CALDERON 



In no modern society * * * has there been so ^eat 
a number of men eminent at once in literature and in the 
pursuits of active life, as Spain produced during the six- 
teenth century. Almost every distinguished writer was 
also distinguished as a soldier or a politician. Boscan 
bore arms with high reputation. Garcilaso de Vega, the 
author of the sweetest and most graceful pastoral poem 
of modern times, after a short but splendid militarjy 
career, fell sword in hand at the hetad of a storming party. 
Alonzo de Ercilla bore a conspicuous part in the war of 
Arauco which he afterwards celebrated in one of the best 
heroic poems that Spain has produced. Hurtado de Men- 
doza, whose poems have been compared to those of Horace, 
and whose charming little novel is evidently the model 
of Gil Bias, has been handed down to us by history as 
one of the sternest of those iron proconsuls who were 
employed by the House of Austria to crush the lingering 
public spirit of Italy. Lope sailed in the Armade; Ger- 
cantes was wounded at Lepanto. 

— ^Maciaulay. 



I. 

LOPE DE VEGA. 

Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (born 1562, died 1635) was in 
many respects the most splendid figure of the Golden Age of 
Spanish literature. In the fecundity of his literary powers he 
surpasses every dramatic poet in the world's history. He is 
noted for the prodigal abundance of his overflowing fancy, for 
his phenomenally rich imagination, and for an almost inconceiv- 
able exuberance of invention. He exceeded in popularity any 
writer in the Spanish language, and his fame has been equalled 
by few of any age or country. 

He was born at Madrid, and was educated there, at the Im- 
perial College, and at the University of Alcala. Montalvan states 
that he could read both Latin and Spanish at the age of five. He 
began writing verses in early childhood. At fifteen he was in 
the army serving as a soldier against the Portugese. Later he 
served in the Spanish Armada. Upon the defeat of the Armada 
he returned to Spain and wrote his "La Dragontea," in epic form, 
devoted largely to a fierce denunciation of Sir Francis Drake. 
While with the Armada he \^Tote the greater part of his "Her- 
mosura de Angelica," an attempted continuation of Ariosto's "Or- 
lando Furioso," in which he vainly sought to vie with the great 
Italian. His poem contains eleven thousand lines, divided into 
twenty cantos. In nowise deterred by this failure, he wrote his 
"Divine Triumphs." in imitation of Petrarch, and again he failed. 
His next attempt to outdo Italian genius was in his "Jerusalem 
Conquered," a poem of 22,000 verses, in twenty books, in which 
he sought to equal or surpass the monumental work of Tasso, but 
again he failed. Indeed, none of his more ambitious poetical 
works are particularly happy. In 1630 he pubUshed "The Laurel 
of Apollo." a poem upon the order of Cervantes' "The Journey to 
Parnassus," in which he records the honors of nearly three hun- 

101 



■ i 

102 LOPE DE VEGA ^ j 

dred Spardsh poets. This poem contains about seven thousand 

verses, and is distinctly disappointing. j 

Lope de Vega's best poetry is to be found in some of the oc- 1 

casional sonnets, ballads and lyrics which are scattered through- | 

out his works. Thus, in 'The Shepherds of Bethlehem," in five J 

books, we find these rare and dainty lines in a lullaby sung by the ^ 

Madonna to her child, sleeping beneath the palms, and they are : 
as exquisite, colorful and tender as a painting by Murillo : 

Holy angels and blest, 

Through these palms as ye sweep, ' 

Hold their branches at rest, ! 

For my babe is asleep. . 

And ye Bethlehem palm-trees, - . ; 

As stormy winds rush : 

In tempest and fury, ] 

Your angry noise hush;-— ; 

Move gently, move gently, i 

Restrain your wild sweep; \ 

Hold your branches at rest, — . ^l 

My babe is asleep. . 

Here is genuine lyrical art. Another specimen, in a different ■ 

strain, but with the same soulful touch, is the following from [ 

"Tome Burguillos/' translated by Longfellow: l 

i 

How oft my guardian angel gently cried, '■ 
''Soul from, thy casement look, and thou shalt see 

How He persists to knock and wait for thee !'* 
And, ! how often to that voice of sorrow, 

"To-morrow we vnW open," I replied; 
And when the morrow came I answered still, 
"To-morrow." 



'* LOPE DE VEGA 103 

But it was in the field of dramatic art that Lope de Vega 
found his most congenial work, and here his talents shone with 
undimmec^ splendor during the greater part of his long and active 
life. The number of his plays cannot now be certainly deter- 
mined, but it is knovm to exceed 1,500, and is probably nearer 
2,000, in addition to several hundred autos or one-act religious 
plays. His plays may be grouped in three classes: (1) Spiritual 
plays, including autos, and ''Mystery" and "Morahty" plays;; 
(2) heroic and historical comedies and tragedies of Spanish life 
and history, and dramas upon classical subjects; and (3) dramas 
of every-day life, the famous "cloak and sword" pieces — capa y 
espada. 

Bouterwek, one of the great German authorities on Spanislr. 
literature, says: "Arithmetical calculations have been employed": 
in order to arrive at a just estimate of Lope de Vega's facility irr 
poetic composition. According to his own testimony, he wrote^ 
on an average, five sheets a day. It has therefore been computed^ 
that the number of sheets he composed during his life must haver 
amounted to 133,225; and that, allowing for the deduction of a 
small portion of prose, Lope de Vega must have written upward 
of 21,300,000 verses. Nature would have over-stepped her bounds^ 
and produced the miraculous, had Lope de Vega, along with this 
rapidity of invention, attained perfection in any department of 
literature " 

In his very interesting biography of Lope de Vega, Lord 
Holland observes: "The most singular circum.stance attending 
his verse is the frequency and difficulty of the tasks he imposes 
on himself. At every step we meet with acrostics, echoes and 
compositions of that perverted and laborious kind, from attempt- 
ing which another author would be deterred by the trouble of the 
undertaking, if not by the little real merit attending the achieve- 
ment. * * * But Lope made a parade of his power over the vocabu- 
lary; he Vv'as not contented with displaying the various order in 
which he could dispose the syllables and marshal the rhym^es of 
his language, but he also prided himself upon the celerity with 
which he brought them to go through the most whimsical but 
the most difficult evolutions. He seems to have been partial ta 



104 LOPE DE VEGA 

difficulties for the gratification of surmounting them." 

Cervantes calls him **a prodigy of nature." Many times he 
lyas known to write an entire drama within the space of twenty- 
four hours. Not less astounding than the prodigious volume of 
his work is the amazing complexity of his plots. He delights in 
leading his characters through the most intricate mazes of in- 
trigue, flanked by counter-plots and under-plots in endless variety. 
His dran atic style is fresh, forceful and pleasing and his be- 
wildering ingenuity is a charm that never fails. Ticknor, in his 
History of Spanish Literature, says that the droll, the variously 
witty grncioso, the full-blown parody of the heroic characters of 
the play, the dramatic picaro, is solely the creation of Lope de 
Vega. He gave it to the Spanish stage, thence it passed to the 
French, and then to all the other theatres of modern times. He 
was likewise the first to accord to woman her proper place in the 
drama. ''Hitherto the woman had been allotted a secondary and 
Incidental part, ludicrous in the comedies and skits, sentimental 
in the set piece. Lope, the expert in gallantry, in manners, in 
observation, placed her in her true setting as an ideal, as the 
mainspring of dramatic motive and of chivalrous conduct." 

Lope de Vega ignored the classical dramatic unities, and 
^ften wrote in utter defiance of all the rules of dramatic art. 
*'When I am going to write a play," he says, "I lock up all pre- 
eepts, and cast Terence and Plautus out of my study, lest they 
should cry out against me, as truth is wont to do, even from such 
dumb volumes ; for I write according to the art invented by those 
who sought the applause of the multitude, whom it is but just to 
liumor in their folly, since it is they who pay for it." He says 
that he wrote only six plays that did not "gravely offend against 
the rules." He does not seek to inculcate any general program of 
morality, but merely depicts manners as he finds them. He does 
not seek to elevate the popular taste, but merely caters to it. 
^*Keep the explanation of the story doubtful till the last scene," 
he advises ; "for, as soon as the public know how it will end, they 
turn their faces to the door and their backs to the stage." Lope 
knew his audience. 



LOPE DE VEGA . . 105 

Lope de Vega is especially felicitous in some of his lighter 
pieces, as in '*E1 Azero de Madrid," from which Moliere afterward 
borrowed his "Medecin Malgre Lui." Lope's portrayal of the old 
Spanish duenna, as she accompanies her ward from church, and 
attempts to prevent her speaking to her waiting lover, is charaO- 
teristic : 

Theodora: ^ Show more of gentleness and modesty; — 
Of gentleness in walking quietly, 
Of modesty in looking only down 
Upon the earth you tread. 
Belisa: 'Tis what I do. 
Theodora: What? When you're looking straight toward 

that man? 
Belisa: Did you not bid me look upon the earth? 

And what is he but just a bit of it? 
Theodora : I said the earth whereon you tread, my niece, 
Belisa: But that whereon I tread is hidden quite 
With my own petticoat and walking dress. 
Theodora: Words such as these become no well bred maid* 
But, by your mother's blessed memory, 
ril put an end to all your pretty tricks ; — 
What ? You look back at him again ? 
Belisa: Who? I? 

Theodora: Yes, you; — and make him secret signs besides* 
Behsa: Not L 'Tis only that you troubled me 

With teasing questions and perverse replies. 
So that I stumbled, and looked round to see 
Who would prevent my fall. 

And so the dialogue proceeds in its airy flippancy and frolicsome 
humor — always Castilian, and always portraying perfectly to de- 
lighted audiences the manners of the time. 



106 LOPE DE VEGA 

After the death of his first wife, Lope de Vega married again. 
Upon the death of his second wife he entered the priesthood, and 
became an offi^cer of the Spanish Inquisition. But he did not 
cease writing. When the theatre was suppressed by royal order, 
Lope resumed his early practice of writing morality and religious 
dramas. He was idolized by the Spanish populace, and w^hen he 
died the ceremonies attending his obsequies occupied nine days. 

No man of letters was ever better paid for his work than was 
Lope de Vega. Montalvan says that he received for his plays 
eighty thousand ducats. Besides other benefactions, the Duke 
cf Sessa alone gave him, at various times, twenty-four thousand 
ducats, and a sinecure of three hundred more per annum. But 
Lope v>^as prodigal toward his friends, was charitable to a fault, 
snd was almost penniless when he died. 



II. 

CEHYANTES. 

Fifteen years before Lope de Vega first saw the light, there 
was born, at Alcola de Henares, in October, 1547, the greatest 
literary genius of the Spanish race, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, 
a victim of adversity, the butt of sorrow and the child of woe; 
but who for all that, as Carlyle said, was the author of "our joy- 
fullest modern book,'' and, as Moore said of Sheridan, 

**\\Tiose humor, as gay as the fire-fly's light, 

Play'd round every subject , and shone as it play'd; — 

Whose wit in the combat as gentle, as bright. 
Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade." 

Cervantes was among the manliest, the kindhest and gentlest 
of men. Whether we see him in fierce battle with the Turks in 
the great sea-fight of Lepanto, for the greater glory of God and 
exaltation of Spain; or behold his stricken form, sorely wounded 
and maimed for life, languishing in one of the crude military hos- 
pitals of that age; or follow him in his five terrible years of 
Moorish slavery in Algiers; or view him through the bars of a 
Spanish jail, undergoing sentence for another's fault ; always and 
everywhere we find him stout of heart, magnanimous and true, 
without taint of bitterness in his soul, and bravely smaling 
through his tears. 

In 1584, at the age of thirty-seven, and im.mediately follow- 
ing the pubhcation of his "Galatea," — written, it is said, to win 
favor in the eyes of the woman he loved — he was married to a 
young lady of good family, but who, like Cervantes, was poor, and 
who faithfully shared his hardships during the remainder of his 
life. Soon afterward he turned to authorship for a liveHhood, 
and devoted his talents to the stage. But •his dramatic work, as 

107 



108 CERVANTES 

a whole, was far from satisfactory, and his labors brought small 
financial return. Even the names of several of his plays are lost. 
The best play of Cervantes is his *'Numancia," a tragedy founded 
upon the fate of Numantia, whose four thousand men had re- 
sisted the onslaught of eighty thousand Roman troops. The 
town was reduced by famine, and when the Romans entered, not a 
single Numantian was found alive. This play has elicited praise 
from A. W. von Schlegel, Shelly and Goethe. Bouterwek affirms 
that it justifies the opinion that, in different circumstances, Cer- 
vantes might have been the Aeschylus of Spain. 

Forced by scant financial success to abandon the drama, Cer- 
vantes now repaired to Seville, to engage in commercial pursuits, 
but with indifferent success. For a time he collected revenues 
for the government, but owing to the default of another he was 
convicted and imprisoned because of a shortage in his accounts. 
He then engaged to collect the rents for a monastery in La 
Mancha, but the debtors not only declined payment but threw 
him into jail. Here, as tradition has it, he began his immortal 
story of Don Quixote. Next we find him in Valladolid, where, a 
stranger having been killed near his dwelling, he was placed in 
prison pending the investigation. But in the midst of all his 
struggles and privations he was able to continue his great work, 
and the First Part of his Don Quixote, licensed in 1604 at Valla- 
dolid, was published at Madrid in 1605. It was his first genuine 
literary success, and he was now fifty-eight years of age. Re- 
turning to Madrid, he published his twelve "Moral Tales", which 
have always been favorites in Spain, but are little Known abroad. 
In literary grace and style they probably surpass Don Quixote, 
but are not its equal as works of invention. It 1614 he published 
his "Jourrey to Parnassus," after the manner of the Italian satire 
of the same name by Cesare Caporali. But the poem is almost 
as worthless as the one in the same strain by Lope de Vega. At 
>ts close he appends a humorous dialogue attacking ilie actors 
who refused to present his dramas. 

Cervantes now renewed his efforts at the drama. He suc- 
ceeded, no better than before. In 1615, ten years after the publi- 



CERVANTES 109 

cation of the First Part, he pubHshed the Second Part of his Don 
Quixote, Faihng health now added its burdens to those of pov- 
erty. Death was drawing near. But he had faced it on many 
a bloody field. He did not quail before it now. He met it smiling, 
and unafraid. Realizing that his end was fast approaching, he 
rushed his romance of 'Tersiles and Sigismunda" to completion, 
as a last offering to the Count de Lemosi, who had befriended him. 
"And so." he concludes in the preface to his last work, "farewell 
to jesting, farewell my merry humors, farewell my- gay friends, 
for I feel that I am dying, and have no desire but soon to see you 
happy in the other life." 

On April 2, 1616, he entered the order of the Franciscan 
friars. On April 18th he received the sacrament of extreme 
unction. The next day he wrote a dedication of his last work, 
"marked, to an extraordinary degree," as one critic says, "with 
his natural humor, and with the solemn thoughts that became his 
situation." On April 23, 1616, this brave and bhthesome spirit 
passed away — on the same day that Shakespeare died, if the 
Enghsh and Spanish calendars were the same. 

In 1835 a bronze statue of Cervantes was placed in the Plaza 
del Estamento at Madrid. But more lasting than bronze is the 
monument which he has erected to the splendor of his own genius 
and the glory of Spanish letters, in his narrative or the adven- 
tures of the Sorrowful Knight of La Mancha, the most singular 
book of humor that the world has ever known. The "Don Quix- 
ote" is wholly unique. "The most experienced and fastidious 
judges," says Macaulay, "are amazed at the perfection of that 
art which extracts unextinguishable laughter from the greatest 
of human calamaties without once violating the reverence due to 
it; at that discriminating delicacy of touch which makes a char- 
acter exqvisitely ridiculous without impairing its worth, its grace, 
or its dignity." 

"Cervantes, Shakespeare and Goethe form the triumvirate of 
poets who in the three great divisions of poetry have acliieved the 
greatest success," says Heinrich Heine. Henry Hallam says that 
Don Quixote "is to Europe in general what Ariosto is to Italy and 
Shakespeare to England ; the one book to which the slightest allu- 



110 CERVANTES 

sions may be made without affectation, but not missed without 
discredit." "Numerous translations,"- he adds, "and countless edi- 
tions of them, in every language, bespeak its adaptation to man- 
kind; no critic has been paradoxical enough to withhold his ad- 
miration, no reader has ventured to confess a want of relish for 
that in which the young and old, in every climate, have, age after 
age, taken delight." 

M. Sismondi, Prof. Bouterwek and Walter Savage Landor 
are among those critics who take Don Quixote seriously. There 
are always those who profess to discover in the works of genius 
some hidden motive, some occult purpose, some subcutaneous 
meaning. Bui we do not see why Cervantes may not be taken 
at his word. He says he "had no other desire than to render 
abhorred of men the false and absurd stories contained in books 
of chivalry." Certainly there was ample need of this reform. 
Spanish love of chivalric romance amounted to an obsession, 
among all classes. In 1553 these romances were prohibited by 
law from being sold in the American colonies. In 1555 the Span- 
ish Cortes demanded that all such publications be suppressed. 
But the passion had struck its roots deeply. It had become a 
national vice against which legal acts and edicts hurled them- 
selves in vain. But the vogue of idle and superstitious tales, 
which had persisted beneath the frown of government, melted 
away before the magic smile of Cervantes. No more books of 
chivalry made their appearance after the publication of Don 
Quixote in 1605 — "a solitary instance," as Ticknor says, "of the 
power of genius to destroy, by b single well-timed blow, an entire 
department, and that, too, a flourishing and favored one, in the 
literature of a great and proud nation." In accomplishing this, 
his quaint and wholesome humor has placed the universal spirit 
of humanity under tribute to his genius. He gave to the modern 
world, moreover, its first classical specimen of the "single-track 
mind" operating in all the transcendental tomfoolery of its ex- 
aggerated egoism, the precursor of that international paranoia 
grandiosa which, garbed in the guise of a meddlesome, misguided 
and spurious altruism, has been the scourge and plague of more 
recent times. 



CERVANTES lit 

A most interesting feature of Don Quixote is the great num- 
ber of its phrases which have since grown into general use aa 
proverbs : in which respect Cervantes strongly resembles Rablals, 
although his humor is of a more innocent and wholesome character 
than that of the French author. A single phrase of this classical 
Spanish humor will show both its quaintness and its power: 
''Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse/' 
(Don Quixote^ XL, 5.) 

Spain's latest expression of gratitude toward her most gifted 
son occurred on March 6, 1920, when King Alfonso inaugurated a. 
"Cervantes Hall'' in the National Library at Madrid, in which a^; 
collection of copies of all the editions of Don Quixote, num;bering 
more than 600, will be kept; and twenty tablets, representing subr 
jects of Cervantes' writings, painted by Monoz Degrain, will deco- 
rate the hall. The director of the Biblioteca, Don Francis Rod- 
riguez Marin, furnishes some interesting fiicts concerning the 
various Cervantes editions, the last census of which was made 
by Martin del Rio, in 19 '6, when it was ascertained that there 
were 637. including the abridged editions. These were distributed 
according to languages, as follows: Castilian, 252; French, 121^ 
Enghsh, 115: German, 49: Dutch, 22; Italian, 19; Swedish, 10- 
Russian, 10; Portuguese, 6; Pohsh, 6; Hungarian, 5; Catalan, 3; 
Greek, 3 ; Danish, 3 ; Bohemian, 1 ; Croatian, 1 ; Hindustani, 1, and 
Polyglot, 1. Since this census vv^as m.ade other editions have been 
discovered and acquired, so that the total now reaches 648. One 
of the recently acquired editions is Norwegian, while another is 
Hebrevz-German, the gift of Dr. Yahuda. Two other editions are 
in Japanese, the gift of a cultured Spaniard, Don Juan C. Cebrian, 
of San Francisco, California. 



, in. ~ "y ; 

CAMOENS. 

The -greatest name in the literary annals of Portugal is that 
of Luiz de Camoens, author of the ''Lusiad," an epic poem which 
ranks among the really great literary creations of the world, and 
which has securely won its place in what Goethe calls the ' Velt- 
literatur/' Camoens wrote in both Portugese and Spanish, but 
Ms fame is erected upon his masterpiece, "Os Lusiadas" — liter- 
ally, The Lusitanians — which takes for its theme the voyage of 
Vasco de Gama around the Cape of Good Hope, and incidentally 
narrates the chief glories of the people of Portugal, the Lusitanian 
people. 

In point of priority of publication, Camoens' "Lusiad" is the 
first great epic of modern times, having preceded the "Jerusalem" 
of Tasso who flourished at about the same time; although, to be 
sure, critics are agreed that his work is inferior to the Italian 
masterpiece. In the opinion of Hallam, Camoens, in point of 
fame, "ranks among the poets of the South immediately after the 
first names of Italy ; nor is the distinctive character that belongs 
to the poetry of the southern languages anywhere more fully per- 
ceived than in the Lusiad." 

Probably the best known of the English translations of the 
Lusiad is that of Mickle. But, as Southey has remarked: "In 
every language there is a magic of words as untranslatable as the 
Sesame in the Arabian tale ; you may retain the meaning, but, if 
the word?t be changed, the spell is lost. The magic has its effect 
only upon those to whom the language is as familiar as their 
mother-tongue, hardly, indeed, upon any but those to whom it is 
really such. Cam.oens possesses it in perfection ; it is his peculiar 
excellence." 

In addition to his epic, Camoens is the author of numerous 
odes, elegies, sonnets, satires and epistles, besides three comedies 

112 



CAMOENS 113 

• — -jving ^eleucus,'* 'Tilidemo" and another modeled upon Plautus» 
*'0s Amphitryoes," the same great model so often imitated in 
England, Germany and France. Some of his lyrics are written 
with much tenderness and beauty, and with a facile sweetness of 
expression; a kind of langorous softness and melancholy mildness 
which are well portrayed in this bit of mellifluous ViBrse on a con- 
cealed but unhappy passion : 

De dentro tengo mi mal, 
Que de f ora no ay senal. 

Mi nueva y dulce querella 
Es invisible a la gente: 
El alma sola la siente, 
Qu' el cuerpo no es dino della: 
Como la viva sentella 
S' encubre en el pedernal, 
De dentro tengo mi mal. 

Within, within, my sorrow lives, 
But outwardly no token gives. 

All young and gentle in the soul, 
All hidden from men's eyes, 
Deep, deep within it lies. 

And scorns the body's low control. ' 

As in the flint the hidden spark 
Gives outwardly no sign or mark, 
.Within, within, my sorrow lives. 

Another c haracteristic specimen is his beautiful Spanish ballad^ 
beginnin^r, — 

Irme quiero, madre, 
A aquella galera, 
Con el marino 
A ser marinera. 
I long to go, dear mother mine, 

Aboard yon galley fair, 
With that young sailor that I love, 
His sailor life to share. 



114 CAMOENS 

**Most of his sonnets," says the German scholar Bouterwek, 
in his History of Portugese Literature, **have love for their theme, 
and they are of very unequal merit ; some are full of Petrarchic 
tenderness and grace, and moulded v^ith classic correctness; 
others are impetuous and romantic, or disfigured by false learn- 
ing, or full of tedious pictures of the conflicts of passion with rea- 
son. Upon the whole, however, no Portugese poet has so cor- 
rectly seized the character of the sonnet as Camoens." Notwith- 
standing faults that are obvious, the *'Lusiad" contains beauties 
which distinguish it clearly as the work of a master. There is a 
certain clarity of narration and transparency of style which the 
reader cannot fail to note. There are likewise bold and lofty 
flights of imagination, such as that which calls forth the genius 
of the river Ganges, appearing to King Em.anuel of Portugal, in a 
dream, inviting that Prince to discover its secret origins ; and, in 
the fifth canto, the noble concept of the ''Spirit of the Cape,'' the 
£-uardian genius of those uncharted seas, rising in tempests from 
the deep, to warn the daring mariners, as they rounded Good 
Hope, that they should proceed no farther. This is said to be 
one of the most celebrated and striking figuies to be found in 
modern literature. 

Camoens lived from 1524 to 1579. His life was divided 
*twixt love and war. In his early manhood he was welcomed at 
the court of Lisbon. Here he conceived an attachment for one of 
the Queen's ladies of honor. He was banished from the court 
and separated from the lady he loved. From that time forth, he 
spent the greater part of his life in foreign wars, a voluntary 
exile from the land he cherished and which his great works have 
so signally honored. Returning after years of wandering, he 
presented his noble epic to King Sebastian, and was given a paltry 
pension of about twenty dollars! He lived for a few years, with 
his old m.other, and then passed away unnoticed, in a pubHc hos- 
pital. 



IV. 
QUEVEDO. 

Born at Madrid in 1580, a contemporary of Lope de Vega and 
CervantecJ. Francisco Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas was the first 
great sat^'rist of modern times. He was a man of profound erudi- 
tion, beino' deeply versed in both civil and canon law, mathematics 
and medicine, a graduate in theology, and a master of Hebrew, 
Arabic,*Greek, Latin and Italian. He was a cripple, and also suf- 
fered from defective eyesight. 

In early life he fought a duel in defense of a woman, and slew 
his opponent, who happened to be a person of rank. He then fled 
to Sicily, and entered the service of the viceroy, the Duke of 
Ossuna, for whom he conducted many important diplomatic nego- 
tiations. Later he became minister of finance at Naples, and fur- 
ther dist^'nguished himself in diplomacy, conducting successful 
negotiations with Savoy, Venice and Rome. Quevedo discharged 
all his public offices with marked credit to himself and his coun- 
try. But. with the fall of his patron, the great Duke of Ossuna, 
he was exiled. 

When again recalled to favor at the court of Spain, Quevedo 
refused office, declining, respectively, the posts of Secretary of 
State and Ambassador to Genoa, having determined to give him- 
self up wholly to letters. Suspected of having written some 
anonymous verses against the king, he was suddenly seized and 
spirited away to prison, where he languished for several years, 
although he was known to be innocent of the trifling charge 
against him. His persecution w^as due to the implacable enmity 
of the cruel Duke of Olivares, to whom he wrote a pathetic letter 
in which he said : "No clemency can add many years to my life ; 
no rigor can take many away." His health, indeed, was broken 
beyond all hope of cure. But he did not secure his liberty until 
Olivares was driven from power. 

115 



116 QUEVEDO 

Quevedo wrote everything, from methaphysics to Gypsey 
ballads. He suffered much, and he suffered innocently; and he 
died a ruined, broken, embittered and disappointed man. On his 
death-bed he requested that nearly all his works be suppressed. 
His works are published in eleven volumes, three of poetry, and 
eight of prose. He translated Epictetus, parts of Plutarch, Seneca, 
and Anacreon, and wrote much in the manner of Juvenal and 
Persius. 

In addition to his acquired culture, Quevedo was a man of 
extraordinary natural endowments. Some of his religious and 
love poems are tull of beauty and tenderness. But his principal 
works are in prose, and his satirical prose works are his best. 
His "Paul the Sharper" has been translated into English, French, 
German and Italian. His "Visions" have won for him a world- 
wide fame. An English version, by L'Estrange, won great popu- 
larity in the seventeenth century. 

Quevedo hurled the shafts of his cutting ridicule against the 
current literary affectation known as "Cultismo,'' then at the 
height of its folly. With terrible bitterness he inveighed against 
the vices of the times. But he lacked Cervantes' fine sense of 
the ridiciilous. He was endowed with marvelous wit, but there 
was too much bitterness in his soul to develop a kindly sense of 
humor. His truculent sarcasm, galling satire and biting irony 
could inf^iriate but it could not destroy. The following is from 
his "Vision" of the Day of Judgment: 

"But when it was fairly understood of all that this was the 
Day of Judgment, it was worth seeing how the voluptuous tried 
to avoid having their eyes found for them, that they need not 
bring into court witnesses against themselves, — how the mali- 
cious tried to avoid their own tongues, and how robbers and as- 
sassins seemed willing to wear out their feet running away from 
their hands. And turning partly round, I saw one miser asking 
another whether; because the dead were to rise that day, certain 
money-bags of his must also rise. I should have laughed heartily 
at this, if I had not, on the other side, pitied the eagerness with 
which a great rout of notaries rushed by, fiying from their own 
ears, in order to avoid hearing what awaited them, though none 



QUEVEDO 117 

succeeded in escaping, except those who in this world had lost 
their ears as thieves, which, owing to the neglect of justice, was 
by no means the majority. But what I most wondered at was to 
see the bodies of two or three shop-keepers, that had put on their 
souls wrong-side out, and crowded all five of their senses under 
the nails cf their right hands." 



V. 
THE ARGENSOLAS. 

Seldom has the literature of any nation presented the work 
of two brothers attaining such eminence as the Argensola 
brothers, Bartolomeo Leonardo (born 1566, died 1633) and Lu- 
percio Leonardo (born 1565, died 1613), both of whom reached 
high rani in Spanish letters. 

Bartolomeo was almoner to the Empress Maria, widow of 
Maxiniilian IL, and when his brother Lupercio died he took his 
place, as Historiographer of Aragon. Pope Paul II. appointed 
him canon of the Cathedral in Saragossa. The following sonnet, 
on "Prov'dence" (translation by Herbert) is in his characteristic 
manner : 

''Parent of good ! Since all thy laws are just, 
Say, why permits thy judging Providence 
Oppression's hand to bow meek Innocence, 
And gives prevailing strength to Fraud and Lust ; 
Who steels with stubborn force the arm unjust, 
That proudly wars against Omnipotence? 
Who bids thy faithful sons, that reverence 
Thine holy will, be humbled in the dust?" — 
Amid the din of Joy fair Virtue sighs, 
While the fierce conqueror binds his impious head 
With laurel, and the car of triumph rolls. — 
Thus I, when radiant 'fore my wondering eyes 
A heavenly spirit stood, and smiling said: 
''Blind moralist ! is Earth the sphere of souls ?" 

Lupercio wrote three tragedies which won high praise from 
Cervantes, and was also the author of many canzones, satires and 
sonnets, v/hich have been published with the poems of his brother. 
"Both brothers," says Ticknor, "are to be placed high in the list 
of Spanish lyric poets; next, perhaps, after the great masters. 
The elder shows, on the whole, more original power; but he left 
only half as many poems as his brother did." Speaking of the 

118 



r 



» 



THE ARGENSOLAS 119 

purity of their style Lope de Vega says: "It seems as though 
they had come from Aragon to reform Castihan verse." The 
genius of the brothers was much ahke ; scarcely distinguishable in 
their work, as the English critic, Hallam, thinks ; but the German 
Bouterwek assigns a higher place to Bartolomeo, and in this view- 
he is supported by Dieze, another great German authority, who 
thinks that the eulogy of Nicolas Antonio on these brothers, 
although in rather extravagant terms, is fully merited by them.. 
Lupercio's "Mary Magdalen," which follows (translation by 
Bryant) is one of the finest specimens of Spanish lyrical verse: 
Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted! 
The crowd are pointing at the thing forlorn. 
In wonder and in scorn 
Thou weepest days of innocence departed. 

Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to move 
The Lord to pity and to love. 

The greatest of thy follies is forgiven 

Even for the least of all the tears that shine 
On that pale cheek of thine. 
Thou didst kneel down to Him who came from heaven, 
Evil and ignorant, and thou shalt rise 
Holy, and pure, and wise. 

It is not much that to the fragrant blossom 
The ragged briar should change ; the bitter fir 
Distil Arabia's myrrh; 
Nor that, upon the wintry desert's bosom, 

The harvest should rise plenteous, and the swain 
Bear home abundant grain. 

But come and see the bleak and barren mountains 
Thick to their top with roses ; come and see 
Leaves on the dry, dead tree: 
The perished plant, set out by living fountains, 
Grows fruitful, and its beauteous branches rise 
Forevar toward the skies. ^ 



^ ^' ■ VI. 

VILLEGAS. 

A follower of the Argensolas, and whose youth had moved 
with admiration in their footsteps, as he often boasted, was Este- 
van Manuel de Villegas, called by Dieze "the Spanish Anacreon, 
the poet of the Graces." He is, as this German authority says, 
"one of the best lyric poets of Spain, excellent in the various 
styles he has performed, but, above all, in his odes and songs. 
His original poems are full of genius. His translations of Horace 
and Anacreon might often pass for original. Few surpass him 
in harmony of verse." (Geschichte der Spanischen Dichtkunst, 
p. 210.) 

Villegas wrote much of his verse before he had reached the 
age of fourteen, and published the greater part of it before he 
was twenty-one. Owing to his youthful conceit and indiscretion 
he made the mistake of attacking Cervantes, Quevedo and Lope 
de Vega in his very first edition. This unfortunate bit of imper- 
tinence plagued him throughout his life and has had a tendency 
to mar his reputation ever since. 

Villegas was born in 1596. He was married in 1626, and 
thereafter practically abandoned the field of letters for the less, 
congenial profession of the law, which he was obliged to follow 
for a livelihood. In his mature years it appears that he attempted 
little or riothing worth while in the field of poetry, although he 
prepared a few essays on ancient authors and translated Boethius' 
"Consolations of Philosophy" into what is generally regarded as 
a classical specimen of Castilian prose. He died in 1669, after a 
life of poverty, and without having achieved the literary honors 
which he coveted, or attained the material resources he so sorely 
needed. He must have known, instinctively, the quality and value 
cf his woi'k, and had he been content to herald it forth with some- 
what less of bravado, his own generation might have recognized 

120. 



\aLLEGAS 121 

his ^vorth, and he might not have died an unhappy and a disap- 
pointed man. An author cannot speak for his work; his work 
must spesk for him. 

We have nothing in EngHsh which can be at all compared 
with his miitations of Anacreon. His imitations of Horace and 
Catullus and Petrarch are not less amazing. Routerwek, a recog- 
nized authority, declares : "The graceful luxuriance of the poetry 
of Villegas has no parallel in modern literature; and, generally 
speaking, no modern writer has so well succeeded in blending the 
spirit of ancient poetry with the modern.'' 

In h^'s "History of Spanish Literature," Mr. Ticknor thus 
speaks of Villegas' imitations of Anacreon: "They give such a 
faithful impression of the native sweetness of Anacreon as is not 
easily foi.nd elsewhere in modern literature." The reader will 
share with Mr. Ticknor his conclusion: "We close the volume of 
Villegas, therefore, with sincere regret that he, who, in his boy- 
hood, could write poetry so beautiful, — poetry so imbued with the 
spirit of antiquity-, and yet so full of the tenderness of modern 
feeling ; so classically exact, and yet so fresh and natural, — should 
have survived its publication above forty years without finding 
an interval when the cares and disappointments of the world per- 
mitted him to returu to the occupations that made his youth 
happy, and that have preserved his name for a posterity of which, 
when he nrst Hsped in numbers, he could hardly have had a seri- 
ous thourht." 



VII. 
MONTALVO. 

To Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, governor of the city of 
Medina del Campo, we owe the earhest extant version of the 
''Amadis de Gaula," which during a period of two hundred years 
was the n ost popular prose romance of Christendom. He trans- 
lated the tale from the Portugese between 1492 and 1504, and 
added to it a composition of his own, the fanciful story of "Esplan- 
dian,'' a son of Amadis. Montalvo flourished in the latter part 
of the fifteenth century. Beyond these facts, little or nothing 
is known of him. 

Although French and English scholars have claimed for their 
respective literatures the honor of originating the Amadis, those 
honors belong to Spain and Portugal. Ayala, the Spanish Chan- 
cellor who was the first Spanish translator of Livy, a cautious, 
truthful, learned and sagacious man, mentions the Amadis. Ayala 
died in 1407. Zurara, keeper of the Archives of Portugal in 1454, 
says that ''the book of Am_adis" was ''made entirely at the pleas- 
ure of one man, called Vasco De Lobeira, in the time of King Don 
Ferdinand; all the things in the said book being invented by its 
author,'' Lobeira died in 1403. His manuscript is now no longer 
extant, and we know his work only through Montalvo, his Spanish' 
translato^r The Portugese manuscript was known to exist in the 
archives of the Dukes of Arveiro, at Lisbon, as late as the year 
1750. But from that time we know nothing further in regard to 
it, and it vvas possibly lost in the Lisbon earthquake, which de- 
stroyed tiie palace of the family of Arveiro in 1755. 

The Amadis was translated into Italian as early as 1546. In 
1560 Bernardo Tasso, father of the great author of the "Jerusa- 
lem Dehvcred," pubhshed his poem "Amadigi," which was made 
up almost entirely of materials taken from the Spanish romance. 
The brilliivnt author of the Jerusalem himself likewise praised the 

122 



MONTALVO 123 

great Spctnish and Portugese story in the following language: 
'In the opinion of many, and particularly in my own opinion, it 
is the most beautiful, and perhaps the most profitable, story of 
its kind that can be read, because, in its sentiment and tone, it 
leaves all others behind it, and, in the variety of its incidents, 
yields to none written before or since." Six editions of the 
Amadis were published in Italy in less than thirty years. In 
France the first translation was pubhshed in 1540, followed by 
other editions without number. The first English translation was 
in 1619. 

Montalvo intim.ates that his Spanish rendition of the romance 
is much better than its Portugese original. At any rate, it is a 
compact work of the imagination, not military like the story of 
Charlemagne, nor religious like the story of Arthur and the Holy 
Grail, but m.erely delineating the trials, the adventures and the 
virtues of a perfect knight, the currents of whose life and love 
are crossod by inrum.erable giants, magicians and wicked knights, 
but over all whom he finally triumphs and wins the hand and 
heart of his beloved Oriana. 

The Amadis is written in simple style, and often exhibits 
passages of great tenderness .and beauty, such as those which de- 
velop the iove of Oriana and the ''Child of the Sea." What Cer- 
vantes thought of the Amadis is recorded in Part I. of Don 
Quixote. When the barber, the housekeeper and the curate began 
to expurgate the library of Don Quixote, the first book taken from 
the shelf was the Amadis de Gaula. 

" 'There is something mysterious about this matter,' said the 
Curate; *for, as I have heard, this was the first book of knight 
errantry that was printed in Spain, and all the others have had 
their origin and source here, so that, as the arch-heretic of so 
mischievous a sect, I think he should, without a hearing, be con- 
demned to the fire.' 'No, sir,' said the barber, 'for I, too, have 
heard that it is the best of all the books of its kind that have been 
written, and therefore, for its singularity, it ought to be forgiven.' 
'That is t»:e truth,' answered the curate, 'and so let us spare it for 



124 MONTALVO 

the present'." A decision which, upon the whole, as one critic 
observes, has been confirmed by posterity, ''and precisely for the 
reason that Cervantes assigned." 

Montalvo's continuation of the Amadis in the story of Esplan- 
dian is devoid of interest. Other additions were made by later 
authors, for the most part worthless, until the Amadis stories 
reached the immense proportion of twenty-six books. And then 
Duverdier capped the climax by bringing the broken threads of 
these stories together in seven volumes, entitled ''Roman des 
Romanes," — Romance of Romances. So ends the history of the 
Portugese type of Amadis of Gaul, an eminent authority on Span- 
ish literature remarks, as it was originally presented to the world 
in the Spanish romances of chivalry ; "a fiction which, considering 
the passionate admiration it so long excited, and the influence it 
has, with little merit of its own, exercised on the poetry and ro- 
mances of modern Europe ever since, is a phenomenon that has 
no parall;?! in literary history." 



VIII. 

GUILLEN DE CASTRO. 

Born of a noble family in Valencia in 1569, in his native city 
Guillen de Castro early became distinguished as a man of letters. 
His life, however, was not wholly devoted to literature. At one 
time he held a place in the government of the viceroy of Naples. 
At another time we find him serving as a captain of Cavalry. 
Cervantes speaks of him as one of the popular dramatic authors 
of his day. He died in poverty in 1631. 

Guillen de Castro was a personal friend of Lope de Vega, 
whose mpnner of dramatic composition he followed. Aside from 
twenty-seven or twenty-eight of his dramas, very few of his 
works h.'.ve been published. He dramatized a part of "Don 
Quixote," and this drama was translated into French as early as 
1638, w^hen it was brought on the French stage by Guerin de 
Bouscal. His "Santa Barbara" was imitated by Calderon in the 
"Wonderworking Magician." 

But Castro's chief service to the literature of Europe lay in 
his adaptation and dramatization of the old anonymous metrical 
romance of "The Cid " This drama is entitled "Las Mocedades 
del Cid"- -The Youth, or Youthful Adventures, of the Cid. His 
great French contemporary, Corneille, mado Castro's work the 
basis of h^s own brilliant tragedy of The Cid, a drama which for 
two hundred years fixed the character of the stage throughout 
Europe. Thus the father of French tragedy owes much to the 
genius of his Spanish predecessor. 

The following passage from Castro's work, depicting the 
anxiety of the Cid's father who is waiting in the twilight for his 
heroic S3ii, after the duel, is regarded as superior to Corneille's 
presentalr'on of the same scene: 



125 



126 GUILLEN DE CASTRO 

"The timid ewe bleats not so mournfully, 
• It > shepherd lost, nor cries the angry lion 
With such a fierceness for its stolen young, 
As 1 for Roderic. — My son! my son! 
Each shade I pass, amid the closing night. 
Seems still to wear thy form and mock my arms! 
0, why, why comes he not? I gave the sign, — 
I marked the spot, — and yet he is not here ! 
Has he nedected? Can he disobey? 
It may not be ! A thousand terrors seize me. 
Perhaps some injury or accident 
Has made him turn aside his hastening step ; — 
P 'rhaps he may be slain, or hurt or seized. 
The very thought freezes my breaking heart. 
holy Heaven, how many ways for fear 
Can grief iind out ! — But Hark ! What do I hear ? 
Is it his foot-step ? Can it be ? 0, no ! 
Tis but the echo of my grief I hear. 
But hark again ! Methinks there comes a gallop 
On the flinty stones. He springs from off his steed !" 

*'The Poem of the Cid/' covering nearly four thousand lines, 
upon which Castro bases his famous drama, is one of the classics 
of the mediaeval ages, as well as among the earliest and most 
characteristic specimens of Spanish poetry. The Cid was the 
great Spanish hero of the age of Chivalry, and was born in north- 
western Spain, about the year 1040 — a quarter of a century be- 
fore the Battle of Hastings, — and he died at Valencia in 1099, 
while the knights of Christendom who followed Godfry of Bouillon 
on the First Crusade were planting the Christian standards upon 
the walls of Jerusalem. The Cid himself had devoted the greater 
part of his life to battling with the Saracens on the Moorish fron- 
tiers of Spain v/here for centuries Spanish bravery held back the 
Mohamm.t:dan advance. His name v/as originally Rodrigo Diaz, 
and the title of Cid came to him in the field, from the fact that 
five Moo ish chieftains vanquished by him in a single battle 
acknowledged him, as their Seid, or conqueror. 



GUILLEN DE CASTRO 127 

''The Poem of the Cid" is a spirited portrayal of Spanish 
ChivsilYy. and a living picture of the stirring times described. 
It breathes the spirit of battle, and rings throughout with the 
clang of ]ance and shield. The reader m.ay gain an idea of its 
chivalric dash and spirit from these lines, translated by J. Hook- 
man Frere, describing the scene at Alcocer, where, besieged by 
the Moors, the Cid saved himself by a bold sally, in which he over- 
whelmed the Moorish Hne : 

"Their shields before their breasts, forth at once they go, 
Their lances in the rest, levelled fair and low. 
Their banners and their crests, waving in a row. 
Their heads all stooping down toward the saddle-bow ; 
The Cid was in the midst, his shout was heard afar, 
T am Ruy Diaz, the champion of Bivar ; 
Strike amongst them. Gentlemen, for sweet mercy's sake !' 
There where Bermuez fought amidst the foe they brake, 
Threo hundred bannered knights, it was a gallant show. 
Three hundred Moors they killed, a man with every blow ; 
When they wheeled and turned, as many more were slain ; 
You might see them raise their lances, and level them again." 

The reader will agree with Ticknor, in his History of Spanish 
Literature" when he says concerning this poem: 'Tt is, indeed, a 
work which, as we read it, stirs us with the spirit of the times 
it describ'f.s ; and as we lay it down and recollect the intellectual 
condition of Europe when it was written, and for a long time be- 
fore, it seems certam, that, during the thousand years which 
elapsed from the time of the decay of Greek and Roman culture, 
down to the appearance of the 'Divinia Comrnedia,' no poetry was 
produced so original 4n its tone or so full of natural feeling, pic- 
turesqueness and energy." 

Castro was more faithful to the incidents of the poem than 
was Correilie, and the great Frenchman would have been less de- 
serving of the censure of Richeheu and the French Academy had 
he adhered more closely to his Spanish original ; although, it must 
be confessed that in some respects he has improved upon the 
Spanish work. 



IX. 
VICENTE. 

In his ^'Literature of Europe" Mr. Hallam cites an article 
from the Biographie Universelle in proof of the statement that 
the first drama produced in modern Europe was by Gil Vicente, 
a Portugese. It was a spiritual drama, and was performed at 
Lisbon oti the festival of Corpus Christi, in 1504. But Ticknor 
declares that Vicente's first drama was presented in 1502. 

The date of Vicente's birth is not known, but he died in 1557. 
He produced tragedies, comedies and farces, besides works of 
religious devotion. Ticknor thinks that, taken together, they are 
better than anything else in Portugese literature. Many of his 
plays, however, are written in Spanish, a language which he 
handled v,ith equal facility. Ten of his plays are in Castilian, 
fixfteen partly so, and seventeen in Portugese. Vicente therefore, 
must be classed among the great authors of both Spain and Por- 
tugal. 

Joan de Barros, the Portugese historian, writing in 1785, 
praises Vicente for the purity of his thought and style. The real 
power of Vicente lies in his poetry, or in the poetic parts of his 
dramas. The following verse, illustrating his lyrical style, is 
from Bowring's translation : 

The rose looks out in the valley. 

And thither will I go. 
To the rosy gale, where the nightingale 
Sings his song of woe. 

It is worthy of note that in Gil Vicente's poetry it is the male 
nightingale which sings, and not the female. Many of the poets 
(Petrarch, Milton and Shakespeare among them) have fallen into 
the rather curious error of causing the female nightingale to sing. 
Vicente appears to have observed nature more closely than some 
other singers of first-rate powers. Through his lyrical talents 

128 



VICENTE 129 

some of Vicente's dramas are made to serve a political purpose. 
Thus, when recruits are wanted for an expedition against the 
Moors of Africa, he closes one of his pieces with this poetical 
exhortation by way of envoi: 

To the field! To the field! 

Cavahers of emprise ! 

Angels pure from the skies 
Come to help us and shield. 
To the field! To the field! 
With armor all bright, 

They speed down the road. 

On man call, on God 
To succor the right. 

Gil Vicente vrrote many pastoral dramas and autos. One of 
these, written about 1503, was first presented in the monastery 
of Enxobregas, one Christmas morning, before the royal family. 
It is entitled 'The Auto of the Sibyl Cassandra," and is of interest, 
not only as one of the very earliest dramatic pieces of modern 
times, but because of the pastoral elegance of some of the lyrics. 
Cassandra, the shepherd-maid, dechnes to marry. In the course 
of the play she sings this song: 

They say '' Tis time, go marry ! go !" 
But rU no husband ! not I ! no ! 
For I would live all carelessly, 
Amidst these hills, a maiden free, 
And never ask, nor anxious be, 

Of wedded weal or woe. 
Yet still they say, ''Go marry ! go !'' 
But I'll no husband I not I ! no ! 

So, Mother, think not I shall wed, 
And through a tiresome life be led. 
Or use, in folly's ways instead. 

What grace the heavens bestow. 
Yet still they say, "Go marry ! go !" 
But ril no husband ! not I ! no ! 



130 VICENTE ; 

The man has not been born, I ween, 
Who as my husband shall be seen; 
And since what frequent tricks have been 

Undoubtedly I know. 
In vain they say, "Go marry ! go !" 
For ril no husband ! not I ! no ! 

Gil ^ icente was the father of the Portugese drama, if not of 
the drama of modern Europe. He was an actor as well as a 
playright, and his children often acted with him. His works 
were first collected and published by his son, four years after the 
death of Vicente. A monumental edition was brought out at 
Hamburg, in 1832. 



CALDERON. 

The latest luminary of the golden age of Spanish literature 
was Pedro Calderon de la Barca, the great rival and successor of 
Lope de Vega. He was born January 17, 1600, and died on the 
Feast of Pentecost, 1681, while all Spain was ringing with his 
rehgious plays, and while engaged in literary work; ''dying," 
according to his friend De Solis, "as they say the swan dies, sing- 
ing." So great was his fame that at Naples, Lisbon and Rome 
his death was pubHcly noted as a national calamity. 

Like Corneille, his French contemporary, Calderon was edu- 
cated by the Jesuits. He served in the Spanish wars of the 
period and was a favorite at the court of Madrid. He composed 
his first literary work when barely fourteen years of age, and was 
still writing when death called him, at the age of eighty-one. He 
was thirty -five years old when Lope de Vega died, and from that 
time forth he was undisputed master of the Spanish stage. 

Calderon is said to have been a man of singularly handsome 
countenance, courtly manners, of dignified and chaste deportment, 
and possessed of a voice of rare sweetness, gentleness and beauty. 
No man was more deeply or more deservedly beloved by his 
contemporaries. He was of a most considerate and benevolent 
nature, and his brilliant successes did not mar his meek, modest, 
pious and sunny spirit. He was firmly opposed to publishing his 
works, and thus the task of collecting them has been rendered 
very difficult. But he wrote not less than 127 plays and 97 autos. 
No man ever equalled him in the auto, or religious drama, and 
from this source alone he amassed a fortune, the whole of which 
was devoted to charitable works. 

The plots of Calderon, like those of Lope de Vega, are char- 
acterized by great ingenuity. He has been a fertile field for the 
dramatists of other countries, notably Corneille in France, and 

131 



132 CALDERON 

Gozzi in Italy. Two of his comedies were translated by the Earl 
of Bristol. Dryden took his **Mock Astrologer" from Comeille, 
who, in turn, borrowed it from Calderon. His "El Principe Con- 
stante," translated by A. W. Schlegel, was brought out in Ger- 
many under the auspices of Goethe, and was acted with great 
success at Weimar, Berlin and Vienna. J. Schultze ranks it with 
the "Divinia Commedia." 

A. W. Schlegel, the man who gave Shakespeare to Germany, 
performed a similar service for Calderon, whose work, in some 
respects, he regarded as superior to that of Shakespeare. It is 
admitted that Schlegel's German translation of Shakespeare is 
the best in any foreign language, and the same is doubtless true 
of his translation of Calderon. 

When Calderon reached middle life he joined a religious 
order, and became a priest of the Congregation of St. Peter, of 
which he rose to be the superior, and held that sacred office dur- 
ing the last fifteen years of his life. "He knew how," as Augus- 
tin de Lara said of him, "to unite by humihty and prudence, the 
duties of an obedient child and a loving father." 

In both his lyrics and his dramatic workr, Calderon is noted 
for his moving tenderness, the glowing enchantment and dazzling 
brilliance of his imagery, the preternatural splendor of his scenic 
effects, the superabundance of his vocabulary, the rich variety 
of his measures, the charming and delicious melody of his rhyme, 
his marvelous fluency of versification, and the serene Castilian 
majesty of his style. But few of his lyrical works have survived. 
A specim.en of his simple and tender lyrical style is the poem, in 
ballad measure, of which the burden is '0 dulce Jesus mio, no 
entres, Senor, con vuestro siervo en juicio!" Two stanzas follow: 

How much resembles here our birth 

The final hour of all! 
Weeping at first we see the earth. 
And weeping hear death's call. 
0, spare me, Jesus, spare me. Savior dear, 
Nor meet thy servant as a judge severe! 



CALDERON 133 

When first we entered this dark world, 

We hailed it with a moan ; 
And when we leave its confines dark, 
Our farewell is a groan. 
0, spare me, Jesus, spare me, Savior dear, 
Nor meet thy servant as a judge severe! 



PART FIVE 

GREAT FRENCH AUTHORS 



I 



I. MONTAIGNE. 

IL RABLAIS. 

III. FENELON. 

IV. MONTESQUIEU, 

V. CORNEILLE. 

VI. RACINE. 

VII. MOLIERE. 

VIII. LA FONTAINE, 

IX. VOLTAIRE. 

X. HUGO 



Of all European literature the French is by general 
consent that which possesses the most uniformly fertile, * 

brilliant and unbroken history. j 

— Saintsbury. . I 






MONTAIGNE. 

The father of the modern essay was Michel Eyquem de Mon- 
taigne, whose volume is the earhest of the French classics, and 
the publication of whose essays marked an epoch in the hterature 
of the world. 

Montaigne was born on the last day of February, 1533. He 
learned Latin before he learned French, his father having placed 
him in infancy under a German tutor who addressed him only in 
Latin. He was educated in the law, but soon abandoned that pro- 
fession. He w^as a "councilor" in the Parliament of Bordeaux, 
and was twice chosen mayor of that city. He conducted negotia- 
tions between King Henry IV. of Navarre and the Duke of Guise, 
with both of whom he was upon friendliest terms. He was highly 
esteemed by Catherine de Medicis, by the Kings of France who 
reigned in his lifetime, and generally by the public men of his 
day, regardless of faction, politics or religion — a statement which 
probably cannot Le made of any other equally prominent person 
of that unsettled and bloody era. In this respect his career re- 
minds us of that of Petrarch, the great Italian. His fairness, his 
patience and his equanimity won the hearts of all, and his char- 
acter was a better defense for him than an army of soldiers. 
During all the civil wars of that stormy period the chateau of 
Montaigne was le^t unguarded and unbarred. He had, as he said, 
"no other guard cr sentinel than the stars." 

At the age of thirty-eight he decided to eschew public life 
altogether and give his time wholly to literature; a resolution 
which he was not able to carry out in its entirety, but in which 
he at least approximately succeeded. Whether in his library with 
his Plutarch and Seneca, or patching up truces for the Duke of 
Guise and King rienry IV., or serving the court of France, or 
arbitrating, in the mayoralty of Bordeaux, the differences of his 

135 



136 MONTAIGNE 

neighbors, he led a life of serene and tranquil contemplation, dis- 
playing at all times his candid and sincere temper, and mingling 
a sort of amiable skepticism with an honest faith in God and a 
genuine love of man. 

Montaigne hcs been more generally read than any other 
prose-writer of the sixteenth century, and is still one of the 
favorite authors of mankind. It is very doubtful if there is a 
single person of broad and liberal culture in all the world today, 
who has not at some period of his life fallen under the sorcer*s 
spell of old Montaigne. He and Machiavelli were the writers 
who most profoundly influenced the thought of the sixteenth cen- 
tury; and, as Hallam observes, these two, and Rablais, are the 
only writers of that age, aside from poets and historians, who are 
much read at the present time. 

The perennial charm of Montaigne is as hard to define as it 
is difficult to resist. Whether the appeal may be thought to lie in 
his sprightly humor, in his rambling and discursive manner, in 
his desultory, cheerful, conversational style, his bewitching afflu- 
ence of speech, his fascinating simplicity, his placid equability, 
or in the opalescer t brightness of those pages which he has graced 
with such an aer'al delicacy and lightness of touch, he entertains, 
he soothes and satisfies the leisure hour. When the King of 
France told Montaigne that he liked his essays, the latter replied : 
•'Then, sire, you will like me ; I am my essays.'* And he tells us 
fhe same thing in his preface: 'Thus, reader, myself am the 
matter of my book; there's no reason thou shouldst employ thy 
leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject." But, for all that, 
as Emerson has said: "This book of Montaigne the world has 
endorsed by translating it into all tongues, and printing seventy- 
five editions of it m Europe ; and that, too, a circulation somewhat 
• hosen, namely, among courtiers, soldiers, princes, men of the 
world, and men of wit and generosity." Sainte-Beuve calls him 
"the French Horace" — an eminently apt characterization, too; 
for the reader of Montaigne cannot have escaped his Horatian 
attitude throughout. He is, indeed, a true and living exempli- 
fication of Horace's "golden mean." Balzac said of him that he 



MONTAIGNE 137 

carried human reason as far and as high as it could go, both in 
politics and in morals. But that, we should say, is taking the 
French essayist rather too seriously. It reminds one of the state- 
ment of Charles Francis Adams in his Phi Beta Kappa address 
at Cambridge, in 1883, wherein he said that he preferred the 
"philosophy" of Montaigne to the ''platitudes" of Cicero, how- 
ever, it is hardly to be supposed that Cicero will suffer in any com- 
parison with Montaigne, notwithstanding the opinion of the 
American scholar just quoted. When we have said of Montaigne 
that he possessed tact, good sense, a kindly spirit, the saving 
o'race of humor, and an unfaiHng literary charm, we have said 
as much as can be said for most great prose writers of the six- 
teenth century. 

Montaigne, like Horace, has been peculiarly the companion of 
the literati of the generations that have succeeded him. Epi- 
curian in his tendencies he undoubtedly was; but he was not the 
proponent of any particlar sect or school of thought. To say that 
he argued for any specific set or system of ideas in politics, re- 
Mgion or philosophy, is to misapprehend his meaning. But he 
ppeaks truth; whether by accident or design, directly or by in- 
nuendo, apparently does not concern him. His air is that of one 
who speaks for entertainment — and prim.arily for his own diver- 
tisement. He has no cause to argue, no point to prove. He is 
not seeking proselytes or making followers. What does it mat- 
ter? And this beguiling attitude of nonchalance, this sweet in- 
souciance, is one secret of his charm. He talks and clatters along 
at an amazing rate, but the spirit of controversy is not in him. 
He is not polemical, nor emotional. He does not care to convince, 
seek to persuade, nor mean to offend. If he has jarred the nerves 
of Pascal and Malebranche, it was, we are persuaded, wholly un- 
intentional — and he would say so now, if he could; but he might 
add, as he does in his essay, "Of Repentence": "I speak truth, 
not so much as I would, but as much as I dare ; and I dare a little 
the more as I gr.w older." 

Hallam has observed that Montaigne's great influence has 
been felt not directly upon the multitude so much as through 



138 MONTAIGNE 

the great minds he has reached and helped to mould. We know 
ihat his influence .ipon Shakespeare was very great. Victor Hugo 
thinks that he saved the English bard from the concetti of the 
Italian school, and thus made Hamlet possible. However that 
may be, v/e are at liberty to surmise that Montaigne was in Shake- 
speare's library, and we know that in **The Tempest," in the 
speech of Gonzalo, wherein the ideal commonwealth is described, 
the word3 are taken almost verbatim from Montaigne's Essays, 
Bk. L, Chap. 30. 

"His book," says Sainte-Beuve, "is a treasure-house of moral 
observations and of experience ; at whatever page it is opened, and 
in whatever condition of mind, some wise thought expressed in a 
striking and enduring fashion is certain to be found. It will at 
once detach itself and engrave itself on the mind, a beautiful 
meaning in full and forcible words, in one vigorous line, familiar 
or great. The whole of his book, said Etienne Pasquier, is a real 
seminary of beautiful and remarkable sentences, and they come 
in so much the better that they run and hasten on without thrust- 
ing themselves into notice. There is something for every age, 
for every hour of life." 



II. 

RABLAIS. 

Francois Rablais was born about 1490 and died about 1553. 
The exact dates a^. e unknown. He was the son of a tavern keeper 
and apothecary of Chinon, in Touraine. He was first a Francis- 
an Monk, then a Benedictine, then a secular priest, and then a 
physician, by virtue of various permits from the Vatican. On 
January 18, 153G, Pope Paul HI issued a bull granting him au- 
thority to gratuitously practice medicine, excluding surgery, be- 
cause of his *'zeal for religion, knowledge of literature, and probity 
of life and morals." The Holy Father must have strained a point 
when he signed that statement, or else — he did not know Rablais* 
The reference to his Kterary knowledge, however, is amply justi- 
ied, for Rablais was one of the most learned men of his century. 
His was perhaps the keenest intelligence of that generation of 
men. But as to his zeal for rehgion, and his probity of life and 
morals — well, perhaps the Vatican may not have enjoyed special 
sources ol information which have been disclosed by the vigilance 
of modern scholarship. To the best of our knowledge, we are 
inclined to apply to him the observation which Lady Wortley 
Montague apphed to Henry Fielding: "His happy constitution 
made him forget everything when he was before a venison pastry, 
or over a flask of champagne." 

In PLntagruel's history, Rablais, with his rolHcking humor 
and redundant fertihty of language, has given us the most bril- 
liant piece of fict'on which French literature of that age affords, 
and, with all its moral coarseness, one of the greatest in the 
.iassics of all time. That such pungent wit and exuberant Jollity, 
such joyous jest, such amiable raillery and exquisite humor^ 
should be encompassed with such a nauseating mass of conglome- 
rate verbal filth, is matter of most poignant regret. 

"In Gargantaa and Pantagruel," says Dr. Benjamin Willis 

139 



140 ^ RABLAIS 

Wells, ''frank fooling is mingled with keen social satire, political 

insight, and pedagogic wisdom In the first book, Gargan- 

tua, will be found, together with the farcial adventure of that 
giant, the notable deeds of Friar John, the founding of the Abbey 
of Thelema, and the quintessence of Rablaisian social and peda- 
gogical philosophy. The second had for its original descriptive 
title Pantagruel, King of the Drunkards, Portrayed According to 
Life, with His Amazing Deeds and Feats of Prowess.' . . . Rab- 
lais's influence on the development of fiction was small, but Pan- 
tagruel, Panurge i>j\d Friar John are imperishable creations." We 
learn from one of Rablais's biographies that in France the time 
of paying a reckoning in a drink-shop is still called, among the 
Pantagruellists, or good fellows, a ''quart d'heure de Rabelais" — 
or Rablais's quarter of an hour. 

Rablais is the French Aristophanes; but he also resembles 
Lucian. In his satire he has been likened to both Swift and Cer- 
vantes ; but he is a greater scholar than either, although lacking 
the terrible vehemence of Swift and the majestic equability of 
Cervantes. It may interest some of our money -mad financiers 
to know that Panurge had sixty-three ways of making money, "of 
which the honestest was by sly theft." 

"Panurge is so admirably conceived," says Hallam, "that we 
may fairly reckon him original ; but the germ of the character is 
in the gracioso. or clown, of the extemporaneous stage; the 
roguish, selfish, cowardly, cunning attendant, who became 
Panurge in the plastic hands of Rablais, and Sancho in those of 
Cervantes. The French critics have not, in general done justice 
to Rablais, whose manner was not that of the age of Louis XIV. 
The 'Tale of a T<ib' appears to me by far the closest imitation of 
U, and to be conceived altogether in a kindred spirit ; but, in gen- 
eral, those who have had reading enough to rival the copiousness 
of Rablais have wanted his invention and humor, or the riotous- 
ness of his animal spirits." 

Pope in his "Dunciad" (Book I.) also notes the Rablaisian 
similarity of Swift, in the following lines: 



RABLAIS 141 

"0 thou! whatever title please thine ear, 
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff or Gulliver! 
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, 
Or la'7gh and shake in Rablais' easy chair." 

However, a distinguished French author, M. Taine, in his History 
of English Literature, says that Swift ''must not be compared 
with Rablais; that good giant, that drunken doctor, rolls himself 
joyously about on his dunghill, thinking no evil; the dunghill is 
warm, convenient, a fine place to philosophize and sleep off one's 
wine. When the casks are emptied down his throat, and the 
viands are gorged, we sympathize with so much bodily com- 
fort; * * * in the laughter of this Homeric mouth we see, as 
through a mist, the relics of bacchanal religions, the fecundity, 
the monstrous joy of nature; these are the splendors of its first 
births." 

But Rablais v. as something more than a humorist, gourmand 
and scorner of conventionalities. "In the young Gargantua's 
course of education," writes the French master-critic, Sainte- 
Beuve, ''we have the first plan of what Montaigne, Charron, in 
places and parts the Port Royal school, the Christian 
school * * * set forth with greater seriousness but not with more 
good sense. We iiave in advance at one glance, and with brilliant 
genius, what Rousseau will expound later in 'Emile'." 

In early life Voltaire put Rablais down as merely "a drunken 
philosopher, who only wrote when he was drunk." But twenty- 
five years later he wrote to Madame du Deffand : "After Clarissa 
Harlowe, I read over again some chapters of Rablais. * * * I know 
them, indeed, almost by heart, but I read them with the greatest 
pleasure, because they are the most vivid descriptions in the 
world. It is not that I regard Rablais as equal to Horace. Rab- 
lais, when he is in good humor, is the best of good buffoons ; two 
of the craft are not wanted in a nation, but there must be one. 
I repent that I formerly spoke ill of him." 

"Yes," as Sainte-Beuve adds, "Rablais is a buffoon, but a 
unique buffoon, a Homeric buffoon ! Voltaire's latest opinion will 



142 RABLAIS 

remain that of aP, men of sense and taste, of those who do not 
possess a decided inclination and predilection for Rablais. But 
for the rest, for the true amateur, for the real pantagruelist de- 
votees, Rablais is something very different. At the bottom of 
Master Francois's cask, even in the dregs, there is a flavor not 
to be explained." 

Like Cervantes, Rablais teems with homely, common-sense 
aphorisms which have become household words throughout the 
world, such as, for example, his well-known couplet: 

**The Devil was sick, — the Devil a monk would be; 
The Devil got well, — the Devil a monk was he.'' 

According to Motteux, the last words of Rablais w^ere these: 
"I am going to seek a great perhaps." 



III. 

FENELON. 

Of that mighty quintette of brilliant ecclesiastics surround- 
ing the throne of Louis XIV. — Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Flechier, 
Massillon and Fenelon — the first named is still the most eloquent 
pulpit orator the v^orld has ever known ; but the name of Fenelon 
shines in French literature with a luster all its own, and rays forth 
upon the Age of the Grand Monarch its most splendid beams. 

Fenelon was born in 1651, and died in 1715 after a life of 
active scholarship, pious humility and good works. His life was 
one of gentleness and moderation. In 1688 Louis XIV. appointed 
him tutor to his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy. He had been 
teaching at Paris while following the vocation of the priesthood, 
had written a book on education, and the new post was admirably 
adapted to his talents and suited to his inclinations. Bossuet said 
that the bestowal of this position upon Fenelon was ''a proper 
reward for merit that took pains to conceal itself." Many of 
Fenelon's literary works — perhaps the majority of them — were 
composed as text-books for the young prince. At any rate he 
discharged his duties with such fidelity and zeal that in 1694 he 
was made Abbot of Saint Valery, and the next year he was made 
Archbishop of Cambray. So wide was the fame of the charity 
and piety of the great Archbishop that when the country was 
ravaged by the English under Marlborough, the English general 
gave orders that none of the estates of the Archbishop were to be 
invaded; and a guard was given him for his protection. Never- 
the less, his residence was burned — by accident or mistake, it is 
supposed — and many of Fenelon's unpublished manuscripts were 
destroyed, together with his priceless library. His only comment 
upon his calamity was: "I would much rather that this were 
destroyed than the cottage of some poor peasant !" But we know 

143 



144 FENELON 

how great the loss to him when we recall his words, written on 
another occasion : "If the crowns of all the kingdoms of Europe 
were laid at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of 
reading, I would spurn them all." 

Further light is thrown upon the character of the saintly 
bishop by his part in the famous controversy over "Quietism" — 
a controversy which would now be forgotten by the literary world 
but for the fact that the two old friends, then the greatest lumi- 
naries of the GaHi('an Church — Bossuet and Fenelon — found them- 
selves on opposite sides. In his "Maxims of the Saints," Fenelon 
appears to have fallen into some of the heresies of Madame Guyon, 
a religious woman of whose piety and good faith Fenelon had no 
doubt, although her "Quietism" smacks somewhat of the Hindu 
doctrine of "Nirfana." Bossuet, it appears, prosecuted the gentle 
Fenelon v/ith great bitterness. Finally twenty-three propositions 
from the "Maxims" were condemned by the Pope, who said, how- 
ever, that Fenelon had "erred through excess of Divine love, but 
you have erred through lack of love for your neighbor." 

Fenelon appears to have been the first to write a treatise on 
female education, which he did, in 1681, at the request of the 
Duchess of Beauvnlliers — "De Y education des filles" — of which 
there are a number of good English translations. In this book, 
which displays m.ost characteristically the natural sweetness and 
charm of his humane disposition, Fenelon anticipates by a hun- 
dred years the foundations of modern pedagogy which are laid in 
Rousseau's "Emile," and is wholly free from any of the objec- 
tionable features of Rousseau. Fenelon's theory of education is 
indulgent, and his method a labor of love. As Hallam observes, 
"a desire to render children happy for the time, as well as after- 
ward, runs through his book, and he may, perhaps, be considered 
the foun ler of thdt school which has endeavored to dissipate the 
terrors and dry the tears of childhood." Let us quote but a sen- 
tence : "I have seen," he says, "many children who have learned 
to read in play ; v^e have only to read entertaining stories to them 
out of a book, and insensibly teach them the letters; they will 
soon desire to go for themselves to the source of their amuse- 



FENELON 14S 

merit." Frobel and Pestalozzi have added very little to the com^ 
prehensive view of child-life and growth expressed in this little 
treatise ; while Locke's treatise, published at about the same time, 
is hardly to be compared with it. 

One of the books written by Fenelon for his noble pupil was 
his "Dialogues of the Dead," patterned after Fontenelle, who, of 
course, to .k the idea from Lucian, the source v/hence the Spaniard. 
Quevedo, obtained the idea of his "Visions." But LaHarpe very 
much prefers the work of Fenelon to that of Fontenelle. "The 
noble zeal of Fenelon not to spare the vices of kings, in writing 
for the heir of one so imperious and so open to the censure of 
reflecting minds, shines throughout these dialogues." 

It was the same "noble zeal" displayed in the "Telemachus" 
that caused Fenelon's permanent banishment from the court of 
Louis XIV. This work, stolen by a servant and published without 
the author's consent, v/as declared to contain very plain references 
to the vices of the court of the Grand Monarch. But, neverthe- 
less, it is Fenelon's greatest creation. Critics are not agreed as 
to whether the "Telemachus" is an epic or a romance. Blair 
declares it to be an epic. Hallam calls it a romance. But the 
reader will bear in mind, with Lord Kames, in his "Elements of 
Criticism," that the distinction is often shadowy indeed. Vol- 
taire in his essay on "Epic Poetry" excludes the "Telemachus" 
from that class. It is a work of great moral and esthetic excel- 
lence, breathing the genuine classical spirit, noble in diction, rich 
in poetic imagery, charming in its grace and dignity, written in 
a remarkably harmonious and poetical prose, permeated by a 
beautiful enthusiasm, and covered as with a mantle of divine 
grace by the author's inimitible sweetness of style and spirit. No 
book in the Fren'ih language has been more widely read, and none 
more fully deserves the popularity it still maintains. For, truly 
may it be said of Fenelon, as he said of another : "II embelht tout 
ce qu'il touche" — He adorns all that he touches. 



IV. 
MONTESQUIEU. 

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, President of the 
Parliament of Bordeaux, was born in 1689, and died in 1755. He 
was one of the most accomplished scholars of his day, and ranks 
among the greatest of political philosophers. 

In 1721 he published his Persian Letters, in which, affecting 
the guise of a Persian, he ridiculed the civilization of his times. 
In 1734, after making a tour of Europe, he published his Con- 
siderations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the 
Romans. Fourteen years later appeared his master work, the 
Spirit of Laws, upon which he had been engaged for twenty years, 
and which will be forever numbered among the classics. 

His favorite authors were Tacitus and Plutarch, and Tacitus 
is perhaps the only great writer who has equalled him in the con- 
ciseness of his style. Voltaire said of him that "when the human 
race had lost their charters, Montesquieu rediscovered and re- 
stored them." The King of Sardinia declared that Montesquieu 
had taught him the art of government. But it was in America 
that the brilliant French publicist was to score his most splendid 
triumph. American liberty owes more to the mind of Montesquieu 
than it does to the arm of Lafayette. 

It is said that Washington, as soon as he determined to attend 
the federal congress at Philadelphia, **made himself familiar with 
the writings of Montesquieu." The address penned by John 
Dickinson and issued by authority of congress to the people of 
Quebec, in the hope of gaining their aid in the projected revolu- 
tion, was made up principally of apt quotations from the ''Spirit 
of Laws." A well-known writer has declared that the American 
colonial leaders "knew Montesquieu as familiarly as they knew 
the traditions of Englishmen." Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, 

146 



MONTESQUIEU 147 

Washington and Gouvemeur Morris were among those who knew 
Montesquieu better than they knew Blackstone. 

When the adoption of the Federal Constitution was under 
consideration, the author most cited and quoted in those discus- 
sions was Montesquieu. Singularly enough he was, like the Bible, 
sometimes cited as authority by both sides, and the discussion 
was in some instances narrowed simply to a correct interpreta- 
tion of the French author. When his real opinions were deter- 
mined, the matter was beyond controversy. His recommenda* 
tions were accepted with implicit faith. No one had the temerity 
to doubt his v/isdom. None questioned the truth of his conclu- 
sions or the justice of his observations. To these giant states- 
men his voice was oracular and his word was law. 

The longest quotation in the Federalist is in one of Hamilton's 
papers, and it is from. Montesquieu. When Madison was seeking 
to demonstrate the wisdom of separating the executive, legislative 
and judicial powers, he said ("The Federalist,'' No. xlvii) : 
'The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject, is 
the celebrated M(mtesquieu. If he be not the author of this in- 
valuable precept m the science of politics, he has the merit at 
least of displaying and recommending it most effectually to the 
attention of manKind." In this view Madison is supported by 
Dr. Francis Lieber, the poHtical guide of Justice Story and Chan- 
cellor Kent, and the personal friend and adviser of Lincoln. 
Lieber declared, in a note to page 150 of his ''Civil Liberty and 
Self-Government," that "Montesquieu is the first political philoso- 
pher who distinctively conceived the necessity of a division of 
power." Montesquieu was likewise one of the chief authorities, 
if not the principal one, cited in support of the idea of a federal 
union. Jeremy Bentham notes also that he was one of the first 
to see the harm fulness of too many laws and an intricate code; 
a lesson which Montesquieu first learned, no doubt, from his 
Tacitus (Annals, Bk. III., p. 160) : "Corruption abounding in the 
commonwealth, the commonwealth abounded in laws." 

Montesquieu fully merited the tribute of Lord Chesterfield, 
who said of him : "His virtues did honor to human nature ; his 



148 MONTESQUIEU 

writings, justice. A friend to mankind, he asserted their un- 
doubted and unalienable rights and liberties. His works will 
illustrate his name, and survive him as long as right reason, moral 
obligation and the true spirit of laws shall be understood, re- 
spected and maintained." Indeed, for any lover of liberty today, 
no book will better repay a reading than Montesquieu's Spirit of 
Laws. His philosophy is a perpetual fountain of freedom, while 
his epigrammatic, style, coruscating and luminous, will forever in- 
terest, instruct and delight the cultured mind. Many are the ills 
we might be spared if modern statesmen would but turn again to 
him! Thus, he warns: "The deterioration of a government be- 
gins almost always by the decay of its principles." And again: 
"Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty." 
Volumes could tell us no more of human history than he has here 
said in a eingle line. 



V. 
CORNEILLE. 

Pierre Cornoille was the son of a lawyer of Rouen. He was 
born June 6, 160(j. was educated by the Jesuits, and was trained 
for the law. He practiced that profession for a few years, but 
soon abandoned it for the calling to which nature had apparently 
intended he should devote the best years of his life. 

To Corneille is accredited the happy discovery of the sou- 
brette; and, as Edward Dowden observes, "It was something to 
replace the old nurse of classic tragedy with the soubrette." The 
soubrette is therefore as distinctly French in its creation as the 
o-racioso is pure-y Spanish. Corneille's first play, ''Melite," ap- 
peared in 1629. His next was *'CHtandre," and was not so good 
as the first. "La Veuve" is better, and according to Fontenelle 
and La Harpe is the first model of the French higher comedy. 
"The Medea," his next piece, borrowed from Seneca, imparted a 
new tone of digm'ty to French tragedy. These works placed him 
in the front rank of French theatrical writers; but his greater 
triumphs were to follow. 

Seven years after his first production "The Cid" appeared, in 
1636, and set all France ablaze. The plot was borrowed from 
Guillen de Castro. It marked an epoch in French drama. The 
piece was denounced by Richeheu and the French Academy, it has 
been condemned by such critics as Scudery and Voltaire, and it 
was warmly defended by La Harpe and others. But it drew tre- 
mendously, and still pleases French audiences. The next tragedy 
is "Les Horaces," which is open to the same objections as "The 
Cid," as lacking in the dramatic unities, but in literary style it is 
reckoned superior to "The Cid." He next produced the tragedy 
of "Cinna." In the opinion of many this is Corneille's greatest 
work. But it, too, is not without its dramatic defects. 
"Polyeucte," a story of Christian martyrdom, grips the heart, and 

149 



150 CORNEILLE ^ 

its character of Pauh'ne is one of the noblest of the French thea- 
tre. But Boileau and others objected to it because of its intro- 
duction of the mysteries of the Christian faith upon the stage. 
"Rodogune" was a favorite with Corneille himself, but does not 
hold the averagr* reader. However, the first act of this play has 
been highly praised by La Harpe. "Pompey" was more defective 
than any of its predecessors. "Heraclius" is inferior to Cor- 
neille's best literary style, and **Nicomede" is below "Heraclius." 
No dramatist, indeed, is more uneven in his work than is Cor- 
neille. His 'Tertharite" was such a failure that he retired from 
the drama for some years, during which period he rendered into 
verse the ''Imitation of Christ" of Thomas a Kempis. Moliere, 
with whom he collaborated in the production of one play, drew 
him from his ret'rem.ent, but the dramatic work of his later years 
was uniformly unsuccessful. 

The old age of Corneille was spent in poverty — to use his own 
words — "satiated with glory and hungry for money." Some 
grateful verses addressed to Louis XIV. were among his last 
efforts. The king had sent him a gift of money, at the request 
of Boileau. But two days later, on October 1, 1684, the venerable 
father of French tragedy passed away. His great rival, Racine, 
delivered his eulogy before the French Academy, and Moliere re- 
ferred to him as his master. And so he died, poor in what the 
world calls wealth, but rich in the glory of an honored name 
merited so well by a pure and noble life. 

Such profound critics as Fontenelle and St. Evremont praise 
even his minor tragedies. Lucan was his favorite author and 
his Roman prototype. He borrowed extensively from the Span- 
ish dramatists, as well as from the Roman classics. But his 
unfailing and unfading beauty is in his elevated style. He is 
epic rather than tragic, and more splendid than touching. Cor- 
neille is distinguished for noble, masculine thought, for the 
warmth of his nervous eloquence, for his vivid narration, bold 
declamation, impressive energy, sonorous rythm, for the peculiar 
iichness of his geniut;, the fecundity of his imagination and the 
grandeur of his lofty sentiments. The French critic Faguet says 



CORNEILLE 151 

that his language is "the most beautiful that ever fell from a 
French pen ; the most masculine, energetic, at once sober and full, 
that was ever spoken in France." In the language of Professor 
Blair of Edinburgh, he "united the copiousness of Dryden with 
the fire of Lucan, and he resembles them also in their faults, in 
their extravagarce and impetuosity." Yet his declamations, ob- 
serves Di. Benjamin Wells, "the tirades of Camilla, Augustus, 
CorneHa, and many another, are supreme in their kind, and will 
thrill audiences everywhere as long as the antinomies of love and 
patriotism, honor and duty, perplex men's souls." 

Corrieille is one of the most quotable of the French authors, 
and the dignity of his sententious utterance is apparent from 
these excerpts : 

"We triumph without glory when we conquer without 
danger." — Le Cid. 

"He who allows himself to be insulted, deserves to be so ; and 
insolence, if unpunished, increases." — Heraclius. 

But the best known phrase of all, and one which has rolled 
like a thunderbolt around the world, is this, from his Heraclius: 
"Tyrant, step from thy throne, and give place to thy master" — 
Tyrans, descends du trone, et fais place a ton maitre! — a senti- 
ment which one would think more hkely to find expression in the 
Age of Revolutions than in the Age of Louis XIV. 



VI. 

RACINE. 

While lackin^r the copiousness and the heroic grandeur of 
Corneille's imagination, Jean Kacine is undoubtedly the greatest 
of the French tragic poets, greatly excelling his gifted predeces- 
sor in tenderness, and in the uncommon beauty of his versifica- 
tion. Racine is noted for sympathetic power, for his delicate 
perception of ideal beauty, his exquisite Virgilian grace and ma- 
jesty, his depth of thought, and his consummate beauty of dic- 
tion. He is the French Euripides. 

Jean Racine was educated by the Port-Royalist teachers at 
TEcole des Granges, and at the College d'Harcourt, where he read 
and annotated all the Greek and Roman classics, and committed 
to memory the grand choruses of Sophocles and Euripides. At 
twenty-three he was a finished and an accomplished scholar. He 
was presented to the King, and soon formed close friendships with 
Boileau, Moliere and Furetiere. 

His first tragedy, Le Thebaide, was presented by Moliere's 
players in 1664. when the author was twenty-five years of age. 
He was then pensioned by the King. In the next year his Alex- 
andre came out, and attracted wide attention. He showed this 
play to Corneille, who praised its versification, but advised him 
to avoid the dra:na as a field unsuited to his talents. 

But the glory of Racine dates from 1667, when he presented 
his Andromaque, which he derived from Euripides. He was at 
once com.parad and contrasted with Corneille, and the discussion 
of their relative merits has continued ever since. It is said that 
the splendid acting of Mademoiselle de Champmele in the part 
of Hermione made the play a success. Racine prostrated himself 
at her feet, in a transport of gratitude ; a feeling which, it is said, 
was soon turned to love, although they were never married. He 

152 



RACINE 153 

afterwards wedded a woman whose material possessions exceeded 
her mental culture. 

In the year 1669 appeared his Britannicus. Of this play 
Hallam says : *vFew tragedies on the French, or, indeed, on any 
stage, save those of Shakespeare, display so great a variety of 
contrasted character. * * * If he has not reached, as he never did, 
the peculiar impetuosity of Corneille, nor given to his Romans 
the grandeur of his predecessor's conception, he is full of Hues 
wherein, as every word is effective, there can hardly be any de- 
ficiency of vigor. It is the vigor, indeed, of Virgil, not of Lucan." 
Berenice, his next tragedy, has been likened to Shakespeare's 
Timon oi Athens. Corneille attempted, with less success, the 
same subject at about the same time. His next tragedy, Bajazet, 
falls below the others in beauty of style. Next came Mithridate, 
one of the stron.ycst of his plays. This was followed, in 1674, by 
Iphigenie, which, like the Andromaque, is derived from Euripides. 
In Phedre, produced in 1677, he again attempted to surpass Euri- 
pides. In this play he borrows more from the Greek than in any 
other. 

At this time, owing, perhaps, to his Puritanical relationships, 
and for other reasons, Racine appears to have abandoned the 
stage. He was recalled from his retirement by Madame de Main- 
tenon, who induced him, in 1689, to write Esther, a Biblical drama, 
to be performed by the girl students of St. Cyr. Although pos- 
sessing no superior dramatic excellence, the piece is touching and 
beautiful. Louis XIV. applauded its performance, while the great 
Conde was affected to tears. 

Next, in 1691 , came another sacred drama, the Athalie, far 
greater than Iphigenie or Britannicus, and unquestionably stand- 
ing at the head of all his tragedies, although its author preferred 
the Phedre. Athalie was praised by Boileau, and by others among 
Racine's great contemporaries, but was not generally appreciated 
for some years. Voltaire has repeatedly declared AthaHe to be 
the "Chef d'OEuvre" of the French stage. 

Racine's tragedies are all written in Alexandrine verse. In 
literary style, Hallam places Racine next to Virgil among the 



154 RACINE 

poets. A great French critic, La Harpe, in his "Eloge de Racine," 
+hus eloquently summarizes the merits of this mighty genius: 
"His expression v^ always so happy and so natural, that it seems 
as if no other could be found ; and every word is placed in such a 
manner that we cannot fancy any other place to have suited it as 
well. The structure of his style is such that nothing could be 
displaced, nothing added, nothing retrenched; it is one unalter- 
able whole. Even his incorrectnesses are often but sacrifices re- 
quired by good taste, nor would anything be more difficult than 
to write over again a line of Racine. No one has enriched the 
language with a greater number of turns of phrase; no one is 
bold with more felicity and discretion, or figurative with more 
grace and propriety; no one has handled with more command an 
idiom often rebellious, or with more skill an instrument always 
difficult ; no one has better understood that delicacy of style which 
must not be mistaken for feebleness, and is, in fact, but that air 
of ease which conceals from the reader the labor of the work and 
the artifices of the composition; or better managed the variety 
of cadences, the resources of rythm, the association and deduction 
of ideas. In short, if we consider that his perfection in these 
respects may be opposed to that of Virgil, and that he spoke a 
language less flexible, less noetical and less harmonious, we shall 
readily believe that Racine is, of all mankind, the one to whom 
nature has given the greatest talent for versification." 

In his old age, Racine lost the favor of the court, a fact at- 
tributed by some to his mem.oir on the miseries of the people. He 
died in 1699, at the age of sixty. 



^ VII. 

MOLIERE. 

Jean Baptiste Poquelin (who assumed the name of Moliere) 
was born in Paris, January 15, 1622, the son of a tradesman, and 
died in the citv of his birth, at the age of fifty-one. He was 
educated by the Jesuits at the College de Clermont. In 1643 
he abandoned the minor office which he then held, and chose the 
stage as a career. As a result of two unfortunate theatrical 
ventures, he was imprisoned for debt. 

In 1646 he organized a company of players, and for the next 
ten or twelve y-'^ars he traveled over France as an actor and 
stage manager, learning to adapt and arrange plays, and, above 
all, learning human nature. Returning to Paris in 1658, he 
played before tie King, and gained a court popularity which he 
never lost. 

In 1659, at the age of thirty-seven, he presented his first 
satire on cultured society, and inaugurated a new era in French 
comedy. In L'Avare he depicted the vice of avarice, and created 
the character of Harpagon. His L'Ecole des Femmes is a most 
diverting comedy. He revenged himself upon the petty critics 
of this play by publishing that keen satire, La Critique d I'Ecole 
des Femmes, in which he pilloried the pedantic coterie of the 
Hotel Rambouilii t. It has been called ''the first great serious 
comedy of the French theatre." 

Moliere's Misanthrope is another famous comedy, in the 
opinion of critics second only to his Tartuff e. Les Femmes Saven- 
tes is a highly amusing comedy, lambasting the poetasters and 
literary pretend ^-^rs ainong the literary ladies and female fops of 
^aris — a numerous tribe, now widely dispersed, and by no means 
extinct. Les Precieuses Ridicules is another play of the same 
character. 

But TartufTe is his masterpiece, and the greatest effort of 
his genius. It stands alone among the world's great comedies, 
with none worthy to be named beside it. Tartuffe is the comedy 

155 



156 MOLIERE 

of religious hypocrisv, in which he unmasks and excoriates those 
whose love of God is manifested only in hatred for their fellow- 
men ; whose hands are clasped in prayer only when they are not 
clasping a neighbor's purse; and who piously roll their jaundiced 
eyes to Heaven, w^hile giving their festering hearts to Hell. '*No 
one of Moliere's con:edies," says Brander Matthews, "is more 
characteristic than Tartuffe, more liberal in its treatment of our 
common humanity, braver in its assault upon hypocrisy, or more 
masterly in technique." In this play, Moliere has ascended to 
the full height of his towering genius to crush with the pervasive 
power of his resistless humor and blighting irony that lowest 
type of social excrescence, the sour-faced, psalm-singing, whining, 
lying fraud who steals "the livery of the court of Heaven to serve 
the Devil in." He exposed its smug and smirking treachery. He 
smote its villainously dissem.bling sanctity. Moliere did not need 
to cry out with Byron : 

"Oh for a forty-parson power to chant 
Thy praise, Hypocrisy ! Oh for a hymn 

Loud vs, the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt. 
Not practice!" 

Moliere had the power, and he wielded it, in his matchless serio- 
comis style, like a cat-o'-nine-tails in the hands of an offended 
deity. He dragged the slimy wretches from the sanctuaries they 
had polluted, from the temples they had disgraced, from the pews 
they had befouled, from the altars they had profaned, dishonored 
and betrayed, and he flayed them without mercy. He gave the 
rogues the bastinado, without sparing corn or bunion. He singed 
the wool from ^he sheeps' clothing which they wore, and bared 
the ravening wolves. He lanced the most malignant ulcer on the 
face of human society, and he cauterized the wound. Naturally, 
the French Pecksniffs were offended. These whited sepulchres 
belched forth their carrion criticisms in life, and pursued him 
vindictively in deatli. But Tartuffe yet points the detecting 
finger of scorn, while Moliere still lives, and mocks, and smiles! 
Another fraud laid bare by his unsparing pen w^as the medical 
quack. The quack doctor and the quack preacher usually go 



MOLIERE 157 

hand in hand. It is impossible to detect the one without perceiv- 
ing the other, MoHere saw them both with an undimmed eye, 
and he lashed them with a fearless hand. His four medical come- 
dies are masterpieces of their kind. He was acting a part in the 
last one, Le Malade imaginaire, when suddenly stricken on the 
stage. He was removed to his home, and a half hour later he 
was dead. His brave spirit had gone where the quack doctors 
have sent very many, but whither, there is reason to believe, no 
quack preacher has ever followed. 

Moliere will forever be read and enjoyed for his vivacious 
brilhancy, his humorous dialogue, his bright, scintillating and 
inimitible gayety, his elegant, polite and polished satire, his in- 
cisive ridicule, his wholesomeness, and his skillful delineation of 
character. His innocent mirth and pleasantry charm with a be- 
witching subtlet.s that dies not with the flight of time. Moliere 
would be known as the French Plautus, but for the fact that he 
surpasses by an immeasurable distance his Roman model. He 
hardly equals the gentlemanly elegance of Terence, but he sur- 
passes him in every other respect. He wrote better comedies 
than Shakespeare, and no Enghsh comic writer touches him in 
<^pirited and easy versification. 

In the words of the distinguished Dr. Blair, "The dramatic 
author in whom the French glory most, and whom they justly 
place at the head of all their comedians, is the famous MoHere. 
There is, indeed, no author in all the fruitful and distinguished 
age of Louis XIV., who has attained a higher reputation than 
Moliere, or w^ho has more nearly reached the summit of perfec- 
tion in his own ai t, according to the judgment of all the French 
critics. Voltaire boldly pronounces him to be the most eminent 
comic poet of any age or country ; nor, perhaps, is this the decision 
of mere partiality; for, taking him upon the whole, I know none 
who deserves to be prefered to him.'* To which we may add 
the observation of Prof.' Wells, that *'no dramatist, save perhaps 
Shakespeare and Aristophanes, ever joined so much wit to so 
much seriousne>;s as did Moliere." His name will forever stand 
enshrined with those of Goethe, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega and 
Sophocles, monarchs of the stage, and shining servitors of truth. 



• VIII. 

LA FONTAINE. 

Jean de La Fontaine, *'the French i^sop/' was the greatest 
of modern fabulists. Florian and others have followed him in 
vain. Born in 1C21, he was one year older than his friend Moliere, 
but he survived the great master of French comedy twenty-two 
years. Although he was intimate with Racine, Boileau, and other 
^^reat literary lights of the time, it is said that Moliere was one 
of the few who grasped the true literary significance and value 
of La Fontaine's work. Although he led a reckless life, his last 
years were given over to religious penance, and when he died the 
saintly, sweet-souled Fenelon lamented his death in eulogistic 
strain. 

La Fontaine was born at the historic site of Chateau-Thierry.. 
There his father was superintendent of forests. The junior La 
Fontaine afterwards had an opportunity to fill his father's office, 
but the forestry service did not appeal to him. Indeed, nothing 
in the nature of labor or responsibility found favor in his eyes. 
He refused to bind himself to any kind of occupation, and finally 
fell to writing poetry. He dedicated his "Adonis" to the minister, 
Foquet, and was at once received into the minister's household. 
Upon the fall of the minister he was successively patronized by a 
number of rich and noble ladies who were delighted with the 
salacious tales he wrote after the manner of Boccaccio — the 
"Contes et nouvelles en vers." As he grew older he gradually 
abandoned his ''Contes", and devoted his talents to the 'Tables." 

No French writer of the seventeenth century has retained a 
more widespread anc! continuous popularity. The Fables have 
been translated into every language, and are now reckoned a part 
of the world's best literature. These writings display a certain 
pleasing intermixture of archness and vivacity with much solid 
and serious wisdom. He manifests a perfection of elegant beauty 
which almost rivals Phaedrus ; although he is sometimes redund- 

158 



LA FONTAINE 159 

ant, and often Licks the perspicuity and ease of his Roman model, 
whom he greatly excels, however, in the richness of his humor, 
and in his versatile amiability. His beauties are thus summa- 
rized by a modern critic, who says of his Fables : 'The graceful 
Mveliness of their narration, the unrestrained naturalism of their 
description, the homely wisdom of their unobtruded moral, the 
boldness of their covert political teaching (especially in later 
years), the shrewd analysis and observation of human motive, 
has been a perpetual dehght to generations." Upon the whole, 
his Fables may be said to in some measure make amends for the 
shocking impropriety of his "Contes," which were often too 
highly seasoned for even the Grand Monarch himself, who made 
La Fontaine promise to be good before consenting to his election 
to the Academy. He was a roistering, mad-cap rake, but a good 
fellow withal, and could say things that stick in the memory. 
Here is one : *Tvery newspaper editor owes tribute to the devil." 
And he might have added — but why pursue a subject so painful? 
At any rate, as he says elsewhere, ^'Nothing can satisfy the fas- 
tidious. '* And again he says: "Beware so long as you live, of 
judging people by appearances" — 

Garde-toi, tant que tu vivras, 

De juger des gens sur la mine! 
Another phrase which has become a proverb: "Better a living 
beggar than a b.iried emperor." Indeed, as Lessing tells us, in 
his "Nathan der Weise": "The real beggar is the true and only 
king" — 

Der wahre Bettler ist 

Doch einzig und allein der wahre Koenig. 
Which suggests to us, as La Fontaine says in another fable, "In 
everything we ought to consider the end." And in another he 
says : "Alas ! we see that the small have always suffered for the 
follies of the great." This, too, is very wise: "Gentleness suc- 
ceeds better than violence " So, also : "We read on the forehead 
of those who are su} rounded by a foohsh luxury, that Fortune 
sells what she is thought to give." But we cannot grasp La Fon- 
taine merely in excerpts. One must read the Fables. 



IX. 

VOLTAIRE. 

Francois Arouet (who took the name of Voltaire) , the son of 
a Paris notary, was born in 1694, and at the age of ten was sent 
to a Jesuit college, where he remained for seven years and at- 
tained a vast proficiency in the classics. His father destined him 
for the bar, and after leaving the Jesuit school, at the age of 
seventeen, he devoted three years to the study of law,' but finally 
gave his whole thought to the classics. He began writing clever 
satires and graceful verses. Shortly after the death of Louis 
XIV., Voltaire was accused of writing satires against the Duke 
of Orleans. He was exiled from Paris, and upon his return was 
committed to the Bastile for a period of eleven months. While 
in prison he planned his Henriade, the leading epic poem of the 
French language, committing the lines to memory as he composed 
them, inasmuch as he was not permitted the use of writing ma- 
terials. 

For eight years after his release he remained m Paris, writ- 
ing for the stage. His first tragedy, the (Edipus, in the manner 
of Sophocles, was a brilliant success. Because of a quarrel with 
a person of rank he was again committed to the Bastile, where 
he remained for six months, and was released only on condition 
that he leave France. He repaired to England, wliere he re- 
mained for two years and eight months, winning the favor of the 
King and Queen, and enjoying the companionship of the great 
literary personages of the time. While in England he published 
the Henriade, which celebrates the triumph of Henry IV. over 
the arms of the League. He now began his history of Charles 
XII. of Sweden, collecting the materials from the Swedish am- 
bassador at the English court. 

Upon his return to Paris, Voltaire applied himself to financial 

160 



VOLTAIRE 161 

speculation, and gained an independent fortune. But he did not 
cease to write, especially for the stage. He composed, in all, 
twenty-six tragedies, all of which met with a high degree of popu- 
lar favor. His Zaire was popular on the Swedish stage for many 
years. Again brought into trouble because of his writings, he 
left Paris in 1734. Considerations of personal safety induced him 
to fix his residence at Cirey, near the French frontier. His in- 
come from his investments was now about $15,000 per year, a 
large sum for that day. He continued to reside at this place for 
fifteen years, leading a life of cultured ease, writing for the stage, 
and letting fly, in every direction, the shafts of his ridicule, flood- 
ing Europe with pamphlets, and making of himself, generally, an 
international character. Europe shook with his laughter; courts 
and kingdoms trembled at his frown. 

In July, 1750, he accepted the invitation of Frederick the 
Great to fix his residence at the court of Berlin, thus giving of- 
fense to the King of France. While at Berlin he completed his 
history of Louis XIV., his greatest historical work, which set up 
a new standard of historical composition in France. It was this 
work that caused Madame du Duffand to say of Voltaire, that 
*'he has invented history." At the end of a little more than two 
years he quarreled with Frederick, and barely made his escape 
from Germany in safety. Louis XV. dechned to permit his re- 
turn to Paris. He now located in Switzerland, and his retreat 
near Geneva became a mecca for Hterary pilgrims from all lands. 
Among those who visited him here was Oliver Goldsmith. Here 
he lived for more than twenty years. 

Following the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, Voltaire wrote a 
poem entitled "The Disaster of Lisbon." In this poem, and in 
his novel, "Candide," he denies that all the events which take 
place in the universe form part of a divine plan. These works, 
together with his part in the ''Encyclopaedia," and numerous 
pamphlets and satirical writings, brought upon him the charge 
of irreligion. 

At the age of eighty-four he visited Paris for the last time. 
He was received with the utmost enthusiasm. He was lionized 



162 VOLTAIRE 

by the multitude, and fawned upon by the great. A special meet- 
ing of the French Academy was held, to deliver eulogies in his 
honor. At the Theatre Francaise he witnessed the first presen- 
tation of his tragedy "Irene," and his bust was publicly crowned 
on the stage, in his presence. He was carried to his coach in 
triumph on the shoulders of the crowd, and he returned to his 
apartments never to come forth again. He died May 30, 1778. 
Before his death he wrote these words : "I die adoring God, lov- 
ing my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting supersti- 
tion." 

While on this visit to Paris, Benjamin Franklin, the represen- 
tative of the infant American republic, took his young grandson 
to Voltaire and besought his blessing upon the child. Voltaire 
placed his hands upon the boy's head and pronounced, in English, 
the words : "God and Liberty." 

Voltaire always denied the charge of atheism. He wrote to 
d'Alembert: "I want you to crush the Infamous. -^ * * You will 
understand that I mean superstition only. Religion I love and 
respect." But what did he mean by religion? In what sort of 
God did he believe? What was his moral code? Voltaire's pri- 
vate life was one of unrestrained license. He believed and prac- 
ticed, from his earliest manhood, the doctrine of "free love," con- 
tinuously and persistently. While pleading for liberty and law, 
he was loyal to no government under the sun. What appeared 
to be a beacon-light of liberty in his hand, became an incendiary's 
torch in the hands of his followers. But he was one of the colos- 
sal figures of his day, and no writer, in any age of the world's 
history, ever did more to unsettle the minds of men. As Lord 
Macaulay said, in his essay on Frederick the Great: "Voltaire 
could not build ; he could only pull down ; he was the very Vitru- 
vius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a single doctrine to 
be called by his name, not a single addition to the stock of our 
positive knowledge. But no human teacher ever left behind him 
so vast and terrible a wreck of truths and falsehoods, of things 
noble and things base, of things useful and things pernicious." 

Voltaire was an adept at flashy epigram. Thus, his saying: 



VOLTAIRE 163 

"If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him." As 
if the finite could invent the Infinite! Such remarks illustrate 
the shallowness of his philosophy. Nor do they prove his belief 
in God. They prove the contrary. Such a phrase is on a par 
with Robert G. Ingersoll's blasphemous witticism: "An honest 
God is the noblest work of man." 

Voltaire's essay on epic poetry is good. Some of his trage- 
dies are superb. It is worthy of remark that his tragedies, for 
the most part, ^display an exalted morality and a truly religious 
sentiment. His History of the Age of Louis XIV. is one of the 
greatest historical works ever produced in France. But his Hen- 
riade, the publication of which caused him to be hailed at the time 
as a second Virgil, has not survived the mature and sober judg- 
ment of posterity. Indeed, Voltaire is chiefly of interest now, 
only as a mighty precursor of revolution; a revolution w^hich 
enthroned in Paris a naked woman as the Goddess of Reason, and 
engulfed Europe for twenty years in blood. But that sanguinary 
catastrophe would have found other heralds, if Voltaire had never 
lived. It had to be. Where there are bastiles, and lese majestie, 
and lettres de cachet, where government is both tyrannical and 
corrupt, and society is rotten to the core, there must be reforma- 
tion or there will be revolution. And France could not reform. 
It was too late. The disease had gone too far. The hour of dis- 
solution approached ; the hour of death for organized society had 
arrived ; and only after death could a new life arise. 



X. 

HUGO. 

'Vic^.or Hugo was born m 1802, the year in which Napoleon 
Bonaparte was elected First Consul for life, and his career was 
prolonged to within fifteen years of the close of the nineteenth 
century. Reckoned in terms of American chronology, he was 
bom one year before Thomas Jefferson accomplished the Louisi- 
ana Purchase, and he died in the first year of Grover Cleveland's 
first term as President of the United States. In his infancy the 
dying thunders of the first Revolution echoed in his ears, and he 
lived to see France recover from the crushing disaster of the 
Franco-Prussian War. His youth witnessed the splendors of the 
first Napoleon, and his old age saw the scepter fall from the nerve- 
less hand of Napoleon HI. 

Hugo was thirteen years of age when the dream of the great 
Napoleon was extinguished at Waterloo. He was a young man, 
distinguishing himself in literary work, when the long reign of 
George HI. of England came to an end, and was known among 
the most distinguished French authors when Queen Victoria as- 
sumed the throne of England in 1837. He flourished during 
nearly the whole period of her long and illustrious reign, was per- 
sonally acquainted with nearly all the great English men of letters 
of the Victorian era, and survived nearly all the great names of 
that glorious literary period. He published his *'Les Miserables" 
in 1862, just as the opening scenes were being enacted in the 
bloody drama of the great American Civil War, and although he 
had then lived longer than Shakespeare lived, he still had nearly 
a half century of active Hfe before him. 

Modern history exhibits no other character who witnessed 
so mighty a succession of events, who bore an active and an hon- 
orable part in the stirring scenes through which he passed, and 

164 



HUGO 165 

who was capable of intelligently observing, as he observed, the 
whole of the vast panorama of the Age of Revolutions. Little 
wonder that his 80th birthday, in 1882, was celebrated through- 
out the civilized world ! Rightly, indeed, did he inspire the sonnet 
of Alfred Tennyson, who thus saluted him: 

"Victor in poesy ! Victor in romance ! 

Cloud-weaver of phantasmal hopes and fears, 

French of the French, and lord of human tears ! 
Child-lover, bard, whose fame-lit laurels glance. 
Darkening the wreaths of all that would advance 

Beyond our strait their claim to be thy peers ! 

Weird Titan, by thy wintry weight of years 

As yet unbroken ! Stormy voice of France," etc. 

Victor Hugo was the son of one of Napoleon's generals. His 
childhood was spent in Spain, and his early education was super- 
intended by his mother, a cultured woman, from whom, no doubt, 
he drew his early predilections for literature. His "Odes et 
Poesies" appeared in 1822, when he was but twenty years of age. 
Louis XVHL at once granted him a pension, and the young poet 
promptly contracted a happy marriage, the beginning of a domes- 
tic life which was to sustain him in all his trials, and which proved 
a model of propriety, purity and peace. Throughout his long 
life his literary work never ceased. He is the author of many 
dramas, novels and poems. To English readers he is best known 
for his novels, doubtless because of the difficulty of adequately 
rendering French verse into English; but among his own coun- 
trymen his claims to immortality, though amply sustained by his 
romances, will rest chiefly upon his verse. He was one of the 
greatest lyrical bards of all time. 

Living in the France of the nineteenth century, and possess- 
ing his ardent temperament, it was not to be expected that so 
great a genius could be dissociated from the political life of the 
period. In 1848 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies. 
Following Napoleon's coup d'etat of 1851 he went into exile, and 
in the next year appeared his "Napoleon the Little," a fierce attack 



166 



HUGO 



on the king, followed by the **Les Chatiments," in the same 
satirical vein, which has since become a classic. In his exile on 
the islands of Jersey and Guernsey he redoubled his literary 
efforts, and in 1862 his vast romance of "Les Miserables" was 
published simultaneously in ten languages, an event unexampled 
in the history of literature. In 1871, with the collapse of the 
Third Empire, he was back in France, and a member of the 
National Assembly at Bordeaux. In 1876 he was elected Senator 
for life. He was now poet laureate of the Third Republic. Ad- 
vancing age brought no diminution of his literary powers, and he 
was at the height of his glory when he died, on May 22, 1885. 
Lanson wrote: ''When Victor Hugo took his leave of the world, 
it seemed as if he had carried French poetry with him.*' His 
body was allowed to lie in state beneath the Arc de Triomphe. 
His funeral surpassed in magnificence any royal pageant, and he 
was interred in the pantheon, the relics of the patron saint of 
Paris, Sainte Genevieve, being removed to provide a place for 
his remains. 

C. C. Starkweather says: ''We might demonstrate that he 
was the greatest lyrical poet of France. His great novels were 
prose epics." Another adds: "He is perhaps the greatest mas- 
ter of language that we know ; a great writer, rather than a great 
author, and therefore the more sure of an enduring democratic 
fame. He has formed the rhetorical and poetic taste of three 
generations of French youth. All schools of French verse that 
have arisen in the last half -century have united to call him their 
father." 



Victor Hugo was not a great statesman. He was not a great 
philosopher. He had not the intellect of a Diderot nor the scholar- 
ship of a Renan. He was not even a very successful politician. 
But he has touched the heart of the world by his intensity of 
pathos and his warmth of universal sympathy. He is a writer 
of great rhetorical richness and rhythmical beauty, and of limit- 
less imagination. He is unsurpassed in vivid descriptive power. 
In sheer tempestuous force of expression we do not know his mas- 



HUGO 167 

ter. His literary style is in the highest degree oratorical, and 
we therefore naturally find hinv to be an orator second to no 
Frenchman of his generation. His oration upon the centenary of 
Voltaire, in 1878, is a masterpiece of eloquence. His oration on 
the death of Honore de Balzac is almost as great. A fine speci- 
men of his forensic power is found in his oration against capital 
punishment. In 1851 his son, the publisher of a newspaper, was 
prosecuted for lack of respect for the laws, because of his report 
of a legal execution which occurred in circumstances peculiarly 
brutal. Victor Hugo defended his son before a jury. His speech 
stands to this day as probably the most powerful arraignment of 
the death penalty that ever fell from the lips of man. 

He referred to the cruel and vengeful laws of capital punish- 
ment as **those laws that dip the finger in human blood to write 
the commandment, Thou shalt not kill; those impious laws that 
make one lose faith in humanity when they strike the guilty, 
and that cause one to doubt God when they smite the innocent." 
But the thrilling climax of this wonderful effort was. reached 
when he said: "Yes, I declare it, this old and unwise law of re- 
taliation, this law which requires blood for blood, I have combatted 
it all my life — all my life, gentlemen of the jury, and as long as 
I have breath I will combat it; with all my efforts as a writer I 
will combat it, and with all my acts and votes as a legislator; I 
declare it (here he pointed to a crucifix hanging on the wall of the 
court room) before that Victim of the death penalty who is there, 
who sees us and who hears us I I swear it before that cross, 
where, two thousand years ago, as an everlasting testimony for 
generations to come, human law nailed the Law Divine I" 

Hugo was also an adept in the use of the crayon. The mas- 
terwork of his artistry in this regard is his ''Execution of John 
Brown." The volatile French author had been deeply affected by 
the anti-slavery movement in the United States. When John 
Brown was sent to the gallows, Hugo summoned his crayon in 
aid of his pen, and produced the gruesome sketch of a tattered 
figure danghng from a gibbet in the moonhght. He inscribed it 



168 



HUGO 



"Pro Christo sicut Christus" — and under it he wrote the single 
word, "Ecce." The drawing created a profound sensation in 
America, and in the early part of the Civil War it was used 
throughout the Northern States in aid of recruiting. He hated 
slavery as he hated capital punishment. Later he wrote: "The 
scaffold is the friend of slavery. The shadow of a gallows is 
projected over the fratricidal v/ar of the United States;" and he 
referred to "this monstrous penalty of death, the glory of which 
it is to have raised upon the earth two crucifixes, that of Jesus 
Christ in the old world and that of John Brown in the new." 



PART SIX 

GREAT GERMAN AUTHORS 



1^ 



I. GOETHE. 

IL SCHILLER. 

HL LESSING. 

IV. KANT. 

V. RICHTER. 

VI. KLOPSTOCK. 

VII. WIELAND. 

VIII. HERDER. 

IX. HEINE. 

X. WEBER. 



From 1780 to 1830 Germany has produced all the 
ideas of our historic age; and for half a century still, per- 
haps for a whole century, our great work will be to think 
them out again. * * * The philosophic German genius, 
which, having engendered a new metaphysics, theology, 
poetry, literature, linguistic science, an exegesis, erudi- 
tion, descends now into the sciences and continues its 
evolution. No more original spirit, more universal, more 
fertile in consequences of every scope and species, more 
capable of transforming and reforming everything, has 
appeared for three hundred years. It is of the same 
order as that of the Renaissance and of the Classical Age. 
It, -like them, connects itself with the great works of 
contemporary intelligence, appears in all civilized lands, 
is propagated with the same inward qualities, but under 
different forms. It, like them, is one of the epochs of 
the world's history. 

— (Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, "History of English 
Literature;" Bk. V., Chap. IV.; translated from 
the French, by Henri Van Laun. 



I. 

GOETHE. 

The German Apollo, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great- 
est literary genius of the Germanic race, is, after Aristotle, the 
world's most perfect specimen of the universal mind. He is of 
the select company of the super-great. "Of great men among so 
many milKons^ of noted men," said that great' Englishman, 
Thomas Carlyle, "it is computed that in our time there have been 
but two ; one in the practical, another in the speculative province : 
Napoleon Bounaparte and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — Goethe 
intrinsically of much more unquestionable merit." 

Goethe united in rare degree the pristine fires of Homer, the 
melancholy grandeur of Dante, and the subtle witchery of Shake- 
speare. But he possessed a perennial freshness of fancy and a 
certain sweetness of melody, combined with a statuesque dignity 
all his own. In sheer force and scope of intellect he surpasses any 
man who ever dipped a pen in the etherial fountains of immortal 
verse. The learned French critic, Taine, calls him "the master of 
all modern minds," and "the father and promoter of all lofty 
modern ideas." Another of the most brilHant minds of France, 
Madame de Stael, has observed: "Goethe may be taken as the 
representative of all German literature. He unites everything 
which distinguishes Germany, and nothing is so remarkable as a 
kind of imaginative power, in which Italians, English, or French, 
have no part." 

This prince of poesy was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 
Aug. 28, 1749, the son of lawyer who was a man of wealth and 
position. His mother was a woman of rare talent, and her in- 
fluence upon the development of Goethe's genius may be readily 
traced. From her, in large measure, he imbibed the gift of story- 
teUing, and his precocious fondness for the classics. At the ten- 
der age of eight he had already acquired some knowledge of Greek, 

169 



170 GOETHE 

Latin, French and Italian, and he later perfected himself in 
Hebrew. In vain did Goethe's father seek to bind the towering 
intellect of this young mental giant with the meshes of the law. 
He studied law, indeed, but it was the law of life, the law of light. 
He soon passed beyond the barren confines of civil jurisprudence 
to the laws of time and space and planetary motion, to the laws of 
growth and decay, of beauty and of truth; of the airy filaments 
of thought, elementary spirits — ''film of flame who flit and wave 
in eddying motion! birth and the grave, an infinite ocean, a web 
ever growing, a life ever glowing, ply at Time's whizzing loom, 
and weave the vesture of God" (Faust, Sc. 1) ; of the law, indeed, 
as Richard Hooker saw it — "Of Law there can be no less acknowl- 
edged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the har- 
mony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage, 
— ^the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not 
exempted from her power." 

After a few years at Leipsic, Goethe was sent to complete 
his education at Strasburg. Here he met Herder, who exerted 
a powerful influence upon his literary character. Among the inci- 
dents of his student life at Strasburg, Goethe tells us that Herder 
upon one occasion produced a German translation of Goldsmith's 
"Vicar of Wakefield," which Herder insisted upon reading aloud 
to a select group of students before permitting them to peruse it. 
The touching English tale, classic in its simplicity, made a deep 
impression upon the sensitive soul of Goethe. From his earliest 
youth he had been producing lyrics and love-songs of great sweet- 
ness and beauty, but attempted no great serious work until he 
left the university. 

Shortly after his return from Strasburg, in 1772, he pub- 
lished his "Goetz von Berlichingen." Its success was widespread 
and immediate. He was at once acknowledged as the foremost 
poet of Germany. "Goetz" was translated by Walter Scott, and 
soon gained a European fame. Soon after this triumph Goethe 
met the young prince Karl August of Weimar; a meeting which 
ripened into a friendshiip of fifty-five years, and which was to 
be severed only by death. 



GOETHE 171 

In 1774 Goethe's "Sorrows of Werther" appeared. It took 
Europe by storm. When Napoleon Bounaparte visitea Goethe at 
Weimar in 1806, after the battle of Jena, he told the poet that he 
had read his "Sorrows of Werther" seven tim.es. Napoleon was 
so impressed upon this occasion that, addressing Goethe, he ex- 
claimed : "Vous etes un homme" — You are a man ! He afterward 
invited the German poet to Paris and decorated him with the 
Leg-ion of Honor. 

Karl August became Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar in 1775, 
and at once invited Goethe to become a member of his court. 
The poet accepted the post of Privy Councillor, and became, suc- 
cessively. Minister of Finance and Prime Minister. Weimar at 
once became the literary center of Germany, if not of Europe, 
and here the genius of Goethe shone with undimmed splendor for 
fifty-seven years — until his death, in 1832. In 1825 the fiftieth 
anniversary of his residence at Weimar was celebrated, all Europe 
joining in the jubilee. A medal was struck in England, bearing 
an inscription from one of his recent poems, "Ohne Hast, ohne 
East" — without haste, without rest — and was sent to him with 
a letter signed by Southey, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Scott, Lockhart, 
and others. 

When he had been at W^eimar tor more than a decade, Goethe 
procured from Karl August an extended leave of absence. He 
now undertook his famous Italian journey and remained in Italy 
for two years. Many of his finest creations are the fruits of his 
Italian tour. Upon his return he published, in rapid succession, 
his dramas "Egmont," "Iphigenia" and "Tasso," together with 
many poems of an unusual character. 

In 1794 he formed the friendship of Schiller, a friendship 
which lasted until the death of Schiller in 1805. "Literature has 
no more perfect relation to show between two great men than 
this between Goethe and Schiller," says Hjalmar H. Boyesen, in 
his "Life of Goethe." "No jealousy, no passing disagreement, 
clouded the beautiful serenity of their intercourse. They met, 
as it were, only upon the altitudes of the soul, where no small and 
petty passions have the power to reach. Their correspondence. 



172 GOETHE 

which has been published, is a noble monument to the worth of 
both. The earnestness with which they discuss the principles of 
their art, the profound conscientiousness and high-bred courtesy 
with which they criticize each other's works, and their generous 
rivalry in the loftiest excellence, have no parallel in the entire 
history of literature." 

In 1796 Goethe pubHshed his "Wilhelm Meister," which added 
greatly to his fame. This work was translated into English by 
Thomas Carlyle. In the following year appeared "Hermann und 
Dorothea," one of the sweetest of pastoral tales. But, as is well 
known, Goethe's greatest work is *'Faust." The ''History of Dr. 
Johann Fausten" made its first appearance in literature at the 
book-fair held in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Goethe's home city, in 
the year 1587. In the next year the theme was seized upon in 
England by Marlowe, who made it the basis of his drama, "The 
Tragedy of Dr. Faustus." In Germany the same subject was 
twice attempted by Lessing. Friederich Muller dramatized it, and 
Klinger made it the subject of a romance. 

Goethe, in 1773, just one hundred and eighty-six years from 
the date of the story's first appearance in the city of his birth, 
began work upon his "Faust," which was to be the subject of his 
thought for almost sixty years, and thereafter to become the 
monument of his undying fame. He published the first part in 
1808, and the second part, completed when he had but a few 
months of life before him, was not published until after his death. 
When he sealed the manuscript of the second part, he remarked 
that it was of little consequence what he did thereafter, or if he 
did anything at all ; that his life's work was done. His last words 
were these: "Let the light enter." And so he winged his flight 
to the regions of eternal light. "In him," we may say with Bayard 
Taylor, "there is no unfilled promise, no fragmentary destiny ; he 
stands as complete and symmetrical as the Parthenon;" and the 
world with one accord agrees with George Henry Lewes that 
Goethe truly earns the title "Great." 

Goethe by no means confined his work to literature and art. 
His intellect was truly Protean. He was one of the most profound 



GOETHE 17a^ 

scientific students of his day. He wrote much upon scientific sub- 
jects. He made discoveries in anatomy, botany and geology. He 
made valuable studies in optics. His intellect was omniverous. 
Nothing was too lofty for its reach, or too deep for its mighty 
grasp. ''He saw nature in her grand unity," as Prof. Boyesen 
says, "and his penetrating vision saw the great causal chain which 
unites her most varied phenomena." Goethe himself has said: 
"As a poet L am a polytheist ; as a naturalist, a pantheist ; as a 
moral man, a deist; and in order to express my mind I need all 
these forms." Writing of the period of Goethe, in his "History 
of English Literature," M. Taine, the French critic and philoso- 
pher, says : "The human mind, quitting its individual sentiments 
to adopt sentiments really felt, and finally all possible sentiments^ 
found its pattern in the great Goethe, who by his Tasso, Iphigenia,, 
Divan, his second part of Faust, became a citizen of all nations 
and a contemporary of all ages, seemed to live at pleasure at every 
point of time and place, and gave an idea of universal mind.'* 

His critical faculty was most astonishing, and his literary 
judgments will forever stand as the law from which there is no 
appeal. We m.ay glimpse his method in the following utterance: 
"The prime quality of the real critic," he writes, "is sympathy. 
There is no other approach to a man or a race. Men rarely under- 
stand that which they hate, but they rarely fail to understand 
that which they love." All which is as true as the Golden Rule. 

Goethe has been blamed for his want of "patriotism." When 
the French hordes were ravaging the lands beyond the Rhine, 
when the world was shaken with revolutions on every hand, when 
the very ground thrilled beneath the tread of the German legions 
marching to the defense of Fatherland, when all Germany was 
ringing with the warsongs of Koerner, Goethe's lyre was silent — 
or rather let us say that his lyre, like that of Anacreon, had no 
"bloody string." 

Let Goethe answer. He does answer, in these words to Soret : 
"I am no war-like nature, and have no war-like sense ; war-songs 
would have been a mask which would have fitted my face badly. 
I have never affected anything in poetry. I have never uttered. 



174 GOETHE 

anything which I have not experienced and which has not urged 
me to production. I have composed love-songs when I loved ! How 
could I write songs of hate, without hating? And, between our- 
selves, I did not hate the French; although I thanked God when 
we were rid of them. How could I, to whom culture and bar- 
barism alone are of importance, hate a nation which is among 
the most cultivated of the earth, and to which I owe so much of 
my own culture ? Altogether, national hatred is a peculiar thing, 
and you will always find it strongest at the lowest stage of cul- 
ture." Here is the soul of German culture speaking to the world 
to-day, as it spoke a hundred years ago! For culture speaks all 
languages and flies all flags. Here Goethe rises to the true height 
of his majestic character, lifting the hand only in blessing — not 
to strike! So do we view him now, in the mellow light of a 
hundred years. Casting its rays across the abyss of a century, 
the shining soul of Goethe, gleaming from his far Olympian 
height, with golden voice still pleads for "beauties that shall never 
die, for forms that saber-thrusts shall never mar, for songs that 
ring above the battle-cry, for culture that is born of peace. 



i ^ 



SCHILLER. 

From the perusal of Goethe the mind naturally turns to 
Schiller, the second name 'in the glorious galaxy of Weimar, and 
Germany's ''poet of liberty." Johann Christoph Friederich von 
Schiller was born at Marbach in 1759 (the year in which the poet 
Robert Burns was born), and was ten years younger than Goethe* 

'These names," says a recent writer, speaking of Goethe and 
Schiller, "are household words. Prolific as each of these im- 
mortals was, more has been written about them than they ever 
wrote about anything. Wiseacres have 'peeped and botanized', 
pedants have oracularly analyzed, critics have viewed and re- 
viewed. It is as if one should try to put the Andes or the Hima- 
layas under a microscope, as if one should try to catch the roar of 
Niagara in a phonograph. Goethe and Schiller: they stand side 
by side, great beacon-lights of German poesy. And not German 
poesy alone. They are Titans of world-genius, crowned kings of 
universal literature, known to every school-boy and poet and 
philosopher of two continents. Safe in the heart of humanity, 
the ages will be their heirs. They are on the heights with Homer 
and Sophocles, Milton and Shakespeare, 'like gods together/ 
treasured by mankind.'' 

Schiller's father, an honest and industrious man, but in 
humble circumstances, had been a surgeon in the Bavarian army, 
in the service of the Duke of Wurtemburg, and was earning his 
Hving as superintendent of the Duke's gardens when the poet 
was born. Young Schiller was intended for the pulpit, but was 
obliged to forego that ambition when conscripted for the ducal 
mihtary academy at Stuttgart, where he was subjected to an 
irksome and hateful military discipline, so senseless, brutalizing 
and repulsive as to kindle the fires of rebellion in his poetic souL 
He sought surcease in the writings of Rousseau, and devoured 

175 



176 SCHILLER 

with avidity Wieland's translation of Shakespeare and Goethe's 
^'Sorrows of Werther." Completely at war with his surround- 
ings, and sovereignly detesting the noxious militaristic atmos- 
phere of the time and place, he yearned to strike a blow for free- 
dom, and thus it was that literary ambitions gripped his heart. 

After some years of mental anguish in the military straight- 
jacket, assuaged only by the literary labors which he pursued in 
secret, Schiller was graduated from the academy, and went forth 
^t a salary of $8 per month, as an army surgeon, in the service of 
the Duke whom he so cordially hated. But the hour of retribution 
was near. On January 13, 1782, Schiller's first play, *'The Rob- 
bers," was performed at Mannheim. It was a declaration of war 
against civilization as it then existed, and was the first bugle-note 
in Schiller's lifelong battle-cry of freedom, the echoes of which 
have reverberated in German ears for more than a hundred years. 
Schiller journeyed secretly to Mannheim to witness the perfor- 
mance of his play. He was undetected. He repeated the offense, 
and the Duke placed him under arrest for a period of two weeks 
and promulgated an order designed to prevent Schiller from writ- 
ing anything in future excepting medical treatises. The Duke 
could as easily have stopped a whirl-wind with a sword-thrust. 
Schiller asked to be released from the ducal service. The Duke 
refused, and Schiller fled to Mannheim, September 17, 1782. 

Still pursued by the Duke, he found refuge on the private 
estate of Frau von Wolzogen. In this retreat he remained until 
July, 1783, v/orking diligently the while, completing his "Love 
-and Intrigue," and formulating his great drama, ''Don Carlos." 
He then returned to Mannheim to accept the post of ''poet of the 
theatre," under contract to write three dramas a year. After an 
unsatisfactory and rather precarious existence for nearly two 
years, he left Mannheim, in 1785, going first to Darmstadt, where 
he first met Goethe's patron, Karl August, ''the German Mae- 
cenus," who gave him an honorary title as Ducal Court Counsellor. 
Thence he betook himself to Leipsic, where he spent some time 
with Korner and Huber. He removed with Korner to Dresden. 
There he completed his "Don Carlos" and wrote some of his best 



SCHILLER 177 

poems. The publication of "Don Carlos" greatly augmented Schil- 
ler's reputation, especially in France, where it was thought to 
accord with the spirit of the French Revolution, and in conse- 
quence the honor of French citizenship was formally bestowed 
on Schiller in 1792. 

In July, 1787, Schiller repaired to Weimar, then famous as 
the German literary capital. Goethe was still absent on his Italian 
journey, and they did not meet until 1788. They did not become 
friends until some years after their first meeting, Schiller having 
criticised Goethe's "Egmont," and Goethe having passed some 
strictures on "The Robbers." 

Following the completion of "Don Carlos" Schiller first es- 
sayed historical writing, in his "Revolt of the Netherlands." The 
work is characteristic of his mode of thought. Freedom breathes 
in every line. Owing to the influence of Goethe, Schiller was now 
appointed as a professor of history in the University of Jena. 
His lectures were immediately popular. While at Jena he wrote 
his great historical work, "History of the Thirty Years War." 
He had now set a new style for historical writing in Germany, 
and had in some measure accomplished for German literature 
what Voltaire did for French literature in his "Age of Louis XIV.*' 
But the chief value of Schiller's vast historical* labors came from 
the knowledge they imparted to him in regard to the great char- 
acters and events of that stormy period. Had he not composed 
this history it is doubtful if he could have written "Wallenstein." 
At any rate there is little likehhood that he would have done so. 

Notwithstanding his fame, Schiller's debts were pressing, 
and he began to suffer from overwork. He indulged a fatal habit 
of working all night, and sleeping only in the forenoon. At this 
juncture friends came to his rescue with financial aid. He relin- 
quished his professorship, but redoubled his efforts on "Wallen- 
stein," in which he was aided by the constructive criticisms of 
Goethe. It was at this time, also, that he edited with Goethe the 
journal, "Die Horen." They pubHshed together their "Xenien" 
in 1797, and in this work they completely silenced the heavy artil- 
lery of all their critics. Within the two or three years following, 



178 SCHILLER 

Schiller produced "The Song of the Bell," 'The Crane of Ibycus/^ 
and several other famous poems of rare beauty. 

In 1799 Schiller completed the great trilogy of "Wallenstein/' 
the best acting play and the greatest purely tragic work ever 
written in the German language. Goethe said: "The work is so 
great that there exists no equal to it." It was certainly the 
greatest drama written in the eighteenth century, and among 
modern dramatic authors it has made Schiller's position secure in 
the rank of Goethe and Shakespeare. 

In 1800 his "Mary Stuart" appeared. So great was his repu- 
tation abroad, f ollov/ing the publication of this play, that a London 
theatre sought to contract with him for the first production of all 
his future dramas. The "Maid of Orleans" was produced in 1801, 
followed by the "Bride of Messina," a Greek tragedy in the man- 
ner of Aeschylus and Sophocles. In 1802 he received a patent of 
nobility from the Emperor Francis II., which he accepted "for 
the sake of wife and children." He was now one of the great 
world-characters. Madame de Stael paid him_ a visit in 1803. He 
complained of her attentions as "suffocating," and when she had 
gone he wrote to Goethe that he felt as if he had just recovered 
from a severe illness. 

Schiller was invited to Berlin in 1804, and was received with 
all but royal magnificence. His tragedies were enacted at the 
theatres, and he was lionized by both the people and the court. 
This triumphal visit to Berlin was much like Voltaire's final return 
to Paris. But Schiller could not be prevailed upon to remain at 
the Prussian court. He preferred the intellectual capital at Wei- 
mar to any political capital whatsoever, and wisely valued the 
society of Goethe above that of courts and kings. 

His last work was the drama of "Wilham Tell." The theme 
had been suggested to him by Goethe. It was a parting blow at 
autocracy. His health continued to fail because of his excessive 
labors, and he died a martyr to his art, on May 9, 1805, at the 
age of forty-five, at the height of his fame and in the prime of 
his intellectual powers. 

It was in "Wilham Tell" that Schiller wrote (IV., 1.) : "The 



SCHILLER 179 

storm is master. Man, as a ball, is tossed twixt winds and bil- 
lows." From earliest childhood Schiller was attracted by the 
grander and more terrible phenomena of nature. He loved to 
see the forked lightenings leap and play, and hear the crashing 
thunders roll, while the roaring wind was music to his soul. This 
characteristic remained with him through life, and the stormy 
elements attended him, as a kindred soul, in death. He was buried 
shortly after jnidnight. The night was dark and threatening. 
Storm-clouds filled the sky. When the bier was placed beside the 
open grave, for a moment all was calm. The moon shone brightly 
on the coffin. The body was lowered to its last resting-place. 
Again the sky was overcast, the tempest burst, the winds howled, 
and the storm-king sang a mighty requiiim above the poet's tomb. 
So passed the spirit of the immortal Schiller, the soul of German 
tragedy. His last conscious act was to kiss his faithful wife, to 
whom he had been supremely devoted, and his last words were 
"Happier — ever happier!" So died he who said: 

Der Mensch ist frei geschaffen, ist frei 
Und wurd' er in Ketten geboren — 

"Man is created free, and is free, even though born in chains." 



III. 

LESSING. 

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, **the father of German criticism," 
and, in point of time, the first among German classical writers, 
was born at Kamenz, in Saxony, the son of a pastor of that city, 
by whom he, too, was intended for the ministry. At the age of 
seventeen he began attending the university at Leipsic, and was 
a precocious student. He soon tired of theological studies, and 
took up the study of medicine, telling his father that he **could 
be a preacher any day." For the present, however, he desired a 
wider range of study. From Leipsic he went to the university 
at Wittenberg. At both universities he displayed marked apti- 
tude for literature. 

Lessing published a little volume of poems in 1748, after the 
manner of Anacreon. The next year he proceeded to Berlin. 
There he met Voltaire, who soon became his enemy. In 1755 he 
published his tragedy "Miss Sara Simpson,'' a drama based upon 
the family life, and tending to exalt the middle and lower classes. 
It was at once successful. But it was not until four years later 
that he really began his literary career. 

In 1759, the year in which Schiller was bom, Lessing com- 
menced publishing his ''Literary Letters," a task which occupied 
a great part of his time for the next seven years. The "Literary 
Letters" mark the beginning of the classical period of German 
literature. He left Berlin for a time, to become secretary to the 
Governor of Silesia. While at Breslau he published the drama 
"Mina von Barnhelm," one of the purest gems of German litera- 
ture, and still regarded as a masterpiece. In 1766, after his re- 
turn to Berlin, he began publishing his great treatise on aesthetic 
criticism, the "Laocoon," only one-third of which was ever com- 
pleted. While engaged on this work poverty compelled him to 
sell his library. He then went to Hamburg, where he was em- 

180 



LESSING 181^ 

ployed to aid in the establishment of a national theatre. He now- 
began publishing his ''Dramatic Notes," which were in some 
measure a continuation of the "Laocoon.'* These essays are mar- 
vels of literary taste and mental astuteness, and have won en- 
comiums from the masters of literary and dramatic criticism in 
all nations. 

In 1770 Lessing was made hbrarian at Wolfenbuttel, a posi- 
tion which he held until his death, eleven years later. Here he 
WTote the play, "Emile Galotti," the presentation of which was- 
forbidden by the censor because of its political tendencies. At 
this time, also, he wrote "Nathan the Wise," which has been : 
characterized as ''a dramatic poem of toleration," and which is . 
still regarded as one of the most beautiful specimens of German 
composition. It is said that the piece was inspired by his friend-, 
ship for Moses Mendelssohn, the Jewish philosopher and scholar^ 
and grand father of the great musician. Moses Mendelssohn and 
Lessing were born in the same year. 

Lessing visited Vienna in 1775, and was given such an ova- 
tion as was never before received by a German author. He then 
visited Italy, and found that his fame had preceded him there 
also. In 1781 he died, at the age of fifty-two. The last three 
years of his life were devoted to controversial writings which pro- 
foundly affected the literary and political thought of the day.. 
He was a fearless advocate of the freedom of opinion, and de- 
clared it "better that error should be taught than freedom ofT 
thought stifled." Lessing was almost alone in his advocacy oT 
free speech at the time, and he did for his generation what Miltom 
had done for England. 

It is impossible to overestimate the value of Lessing's work 
in literary criticism. Unquestionably, he is Germany's foremost 
literary critic. Macaulay said that sixty years before his time 
Lessing was "beyond dispute, the first critic of Europe." His 
critical essays prepared the way for Goethe and Schiller, while 
his philosophical writings, beyond all doubt, were of substantial 
aid in preparing the path for Kant and Fichte. Speaking of the 
"Laocoon," Goethe said: "That long misunderstood phrase, ut 



182 LESSING 

pictura poesis, was set aside. The distinction between the speak- 
ing and the plastic arts was clear. All the results of this glorious 
thought were revealed to us as by a lightning flash." 

With all his polemical wit and daring, with all his remorse- 
less logic and his cutting satire, Lessing is always broad, noble, 
tolerant, humane. There was nothing mean, low or narrow in 
his nature. No one can read his "Nathan the Wise" without 
being supremely impressed with a sense of the author's goodness, 
and the genuineness of his brave yet gentle heart. That play, 
indeed, is the sum of all his moral and philosophic teaching. When 
he makes his character say, in Act I., "For God rewards good 
deeds done here below — rewards them here", — he means just 
that, although he does not necessarily mean that the reward shall 
be paid in gold coin, or that it shall be paid immediately upon per- 
formance of the deed. When he says, in Act II., "Know this, that 
every country can produce good men," he means that, too, for he 
had said almost the same thing ten years before, when he wrote, 
in his essay on "Aristotle and Tragedy": "I am convinced that 
no nation in the world has been specially endowed with any men- 
tal gift superior to that of other nations." Such thoughts show 
the magnanimous world-spirit of the man. 

Lessing's essays are models of a perfect expository style — 
clear, simple, logical, vigorous, concise and bold. His sentences 
are a net-work of close reasoning, compactly woven, and beautiful 
as a tapestry. His vehemence is not in his rhetoric, but in his 
thought; and in this respect his controversial writings often re- 
mind one of passages in Demosthenes. He is Greek in his man- 
ner, his thought and his ideals, and evidently no one ever read 
to better purpose the great Greek authors. 



IV. 
KANT. 

That vast intelligence known to the world as Immanuel Kant, 
*'one of the greatest and most influential metaphysicians of all 
tim.e," was born at Koenigsberg, Prussia, in 1724, and died there 
in 1804. He was never marriedo He never travelled. His eighty 
years wxre devoted to the peaceful pursuits of learning, and he 
never stirred from the precincts of the University of Koenigs- 
berg, where he studied, wrote and taught. The adulation of the 
multitude and the flattery of the great were alike matters of in- 
difference to him, and unlike other men of letters, he refused to 
visit other parts of the world. But he brought the world to his 
door. Madame de Stael said that, outside of Greek history, the 
w^orld afforded no other example of such exclusive and supreme 
devotion to philosophical pursuits. 

"He lived to a great age," says George Henry Lewes, in his 
Biographical History of Philosophy, "and never once quitted the 
snows of murky Koenigsberg. There he pursued a calm and 
happy existence, meditating, professing and writing. He had 
mastered all the sciences; he had studied languages, and culti- 
vated literature. He lived and died a type of the German profes- 
sor: he rose, smoked, drank his coffee, wrote, lectured, took his 
daily walks always at the same hour. The cathedral clock, it was 
said, was not more punctual in its movements than Immanuel 
Kant." Herder, who attended some of his lectures, said that they 
w^ere distinguished for wit and humor as well as moral purity and 
profound thought. 

At various times Kant lectured on logic, metaphysics, physics, 
politics, mathematics, anthropology, theology, pedagogy, and min- 
eralogy. He w^as first offered the chair of poetry in the univer- 
sity, but declined it because he did not regard himself as particu- 
larly qualified for the work. In 1770 he was appointed to the 

183 



184 KANT 

chair of logic and metaphysics, which he retained during the re- 
maining thirty-four years of his Hfe. He wrote works on astro- 
nomy, physical geography, neural pathology, psychology, aes- 
thetics, ethnography, anthropology, history, criticism, meteor- 
ology, politics, logic, pedagogy and metaphysics. While his great- 
est achievements were in philosophy, his service to the physical 
sciences was hardly less valuable. It was Kant who first an- 
nounced the theory that the solar system was developed from a 
primitive gaseous material with rotary motion, thus anticipating 
l)y thirty-five years the nebular hypothesis of Laplace. 

But Kant, like Plato, was greatest in his metaphysics. In 
this field he was supreme in his generation. The chief of his 
philosophical works is his '^Critique of Pure Reason," the most 
monumental work in metaphysics since Locke promulgated his 
Essay on the Human LTnder standing. ''Our suggestion,'' he says, 
*'is similiar to that of Copernicus in astronomy, who finding it 
impossible to explain the movements of heavenly bodies on the 
supposition that they turned round the spectator, tried whether 
he might not succeed better by supposing the spectator to revolve 
and the stars to remain at rest." This suggests Einstein's recent 
theory of relativity. Kant wrote this great work in a few 
months, but he had previously meditated upon it for a period of 
twelve years and did not begin the work of composition until his 
ideas were thoroughly fixed. 

It is evident that Kant was profoundly influenced by Hume, 
and that he sought by his massive structure to erect a bulwark 
against the skepticism of the English philosopher. Kant was not 
a skeptic; at least, he was not intentionally and avowedly so. 
But, for all that, the effect of his philosophy was to augment 
rather than to destroy skepticism. .While he affirms the certitude 
of knowledge, he affirms, also, that knowledge is only relative. 
It is not strange, therefore, that philosophers claim to find in his 
system a scientific basis for skepticism. But Kant nobly vindi- 
cated the idea of duty. He founded upon the veracity of con- 
sciousness a system of morals, the belief in a future state and in 
the existence of God. 



KANT 185 

He was, as Robert Adamson said, in his essay on Kant, "The 
greatest philosopher of the eighteenth century." There will be 
no dissent from the statement of Thomas Carlyle that "His criti- 
cal philosophy has been regarded as distinctly the greatest intel- 
lectual achievement of the century/' Schlegel said: "In respect 
of its probable influence on the moral culture of Europe, it stands 
on a line with the Reformation," But his morals, it is believed, 
are better than his philosophy, and it is to be regretted if he has 
given skepticism a weapon with which to thwart so much that is 
beautiful, good and true. 

Personally, Kant was a man of great kindliness and austere 
morality. He was also a lover and advocate of political freedom. 
He expressed sympathy for the American Colonists in their fight 
for independence, and he also sympathized with the first Revolu- 
tionists of France. He was generous, honorable and true. "Be- 
nevolence," said he, "is a duty. He who frequently practices it, 
and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length comes to 
love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, 
'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' it is not meant that 
thou shalt love him first, and do good to him in consequence of 
that love, but, thou shalt do good to thy neighbor, and this thy 
beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is 
the fullness and consummation of the inclination to do good." 

In the same spirit, he adds: "Whether mankind be found 
worthy of love or not, a practical principle of good will is a duty 
mutually owed by all men to one another." 

"Act always," he advises, "so that the immediate motive of 
thy will may become a universal rule for all intelligent beings." 

Again he says: "There can be no more fundamental and 
more certain mode of pleasing the invisible power which governs 
the world, at least in order to be happy in another world, than 
virtuous conduct." 

These are truths that matter; thoughts that count; grains 
of pure gold, without which all philosophy is but dross. They are 
the bed-rock of the life spiritual, the corner-stone in the adaman- 
tine temple of the soul. They need no Critique of Reason to in- 



186 KANT 

fuse into them the breath of life, for they are of the very essence 
of the life that never dies. The cold embellishments of syllogistic 
logic can neither help nor hinder here, where the grandest ratio- 
cinations of the human intellect have reached their highest point. 

In De Quincey's ''Last Days of Immanuel Kant," we find the 
great philosopher facing the end, with the serenity of an un- 
troubled mind. "I do not fear death,'^ said he, ''for I know how 
to die. I assure you that if I knew this night was to be my last, 
I would raise my hands and say, 'God be praised !' The case would 
be far different if I had ever caused the misery of any of His 
creatures." 

"Kant is the great renovator of philosophy," says Albert 
Schwegler, in his "History of Philosophy ;" "he reduced once more 
to unity and totality the one-sided efforts of those who had pre- 
ceded him. He stands in some special relation, either antagonistic 
or harmonious, to all others — to Locke no less than to Hume, to 
the Scottish philosophers no less than to the earlier English and 
French moralists, to the philosophy of Liebnitz and Wolff, as well 
as to the materialism of the French and the utilitarianism of the 
German clearing up period." 



V. 
RICHTER. 

Jean Paul Eichter was a sentimental prose writer, humorist 
and novelist, whose w^orks are edited in thirty-four volumes. He 
does not belong to the German classical school, and vv'as rather 
frowned upon by Goethe and Schiller, although Goethe praised 
his pedagogical work, "Levana," for **the boldest virtues, without 
the least excess." 

Richter was born at the village of Wunseidel, in the Fran- 
conian mountains, in 1763. His early life w^as a bitter struggle 
with poverty in its hardest forms. In 1781 he went to Leipsic to 
study theology. But within three years he was obliged to flee 
to avoid the importunities of his creditors. Meanwhile he had 
published the satire, "Greenland Lawsuits," which was little ap- 
preciated on account of its extravagant eccentricity of style. In 
1789 he wrote "The Devil's Papers," but could not find a pub- 
lisher. His novels, "The Invisible Lodge" and "Hesperus" were 
published, respectively, in 1793 and 1794. In 1796 he visited 
Weimar, and was hospitably received by Herder, the constant 
friend of every aspiring genius, whom he warmly eulogized in his 
"Aesthetics," published in 1804. Although he was not warmly 
beamed upon by its greater luminaries, Richter's visit to Weimar 
was rather successful, and from that time forth his fortunes took 
a turn for the better. After a few more years of wandering, he 
settled permanently at Bayreuth, and remained there the remain- 
ing twenty-one years of his Hfe, dying in 1825. 

Carlyle first introduced Richter to English readers, by men- 
tion in his essays, and by his translation of "Quintus Fixlein," in 
1827. DeQuincey pubhshed a "Life of Richter" in 1845, and se- 
lections from his writings were published by Lady Chatterton in 
1859. Richter is, indeed, best read in excerpts, rather than in any 
of his completed works. Carlyle said of him : "There is probably 

187 



188 RICHTER 

not in any modern language so intricate a writer; abounding, 
without measure, in obscure allusions, in the most twisted phrase- 
ology; perplexed into endless entanglements and dislocations, 
parenthesis within parenthesis; not forgetting elisions, sudden 
whirls, quips, conceits, and all manner of inexplicable crochets; 
the whole moving on in the gayest manner." But' he had a deep 
and tender sympathy, a rich imagination and a certain delicacy 
of touch, which, with his other human qualities, have made his 
place secure within the circle of his admirers, by whom he is 
called *'Der Einzige''— 'The Unique/' 

Richter, we repeat, is best read in fine passages. Few of his 
works hold the interest, but many of them contain paragraphs of 
the rarest beauty, embellished to the highest degree of ornate- 
ness, sublimely poetic, and deeply philosophic, or abounding in 
the practical wisdom of everyday life. Thus: "A man takes 
contradiction and advice much more easily than people think, 
only he will not bear it when violently given, even though it be 
well founded. Hearts are flowers ; they remain open to the softly 
falling dew, but shut up in the violent down-pour of rain." Was 
there ever a more beautiful and effective simile than that pre- 
sented in the last sentence ? And here is another : "A Christian 
man can look down like an eternal sun upon the autumn of his 
existence; the more sand has passed through the hour-glass of 
life, the more clearly can he see through the empty glass. Earth, 
too, is to him a beloved spot, a beautiful meadow, the scene of his 
childhood's sports, and he hangs on this mother of our first life 
with the love with which a bride, full of childhood's recollections, 
clings to a beloved mother's breast, the evening before the day 
on which she resigns herself to the bridegroom's heart." 

Now let us read what he says of authorship: "Never write 
on a subject without first having read yourself full on it; and 
never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on 
it." Horace said nothing better than that, in the "Ars Poetica." 
And nothing, we believe, in either the Christian or the Pagan 
moralists, is better put than this: 

"Nothing is more moving to man than the spectacle of recon- 
ciliation; our weaknesses are thus indemnified, and are not too 



RICHTER 189 

costly, being the price we pay for the hour of forgiveness; and 
the archangel, who has never felt anger, has reason to envy the 
man who subdues it. When thou forgivest, the man who has 
pierced thy heart stands to thee in the relation of the sea-worm 
that perforates the shell of the mussell, which straightway closes 
the wound with a pearl." 

Behold, now his pretty picture of Hope : ''Hope is the ruddy 
morning of joy, recollection is its golden tinge; but the latter is 
wont to sink amid the dews and dusky shades of twilight ; and the 
bright blue day which the former promises, breaks, indeed, but in 
another world, and with another sun." 

The following stern call to the duty of the hour, reads like 
one of the oracular utterances of Carlyle: "Be every minute, 
man, a full life to thee ! Despise anxiety and wishing, the future 
and the past ! If the second-pointer can be no road-pointer, with 
an Eden for thy goal, the month-pointer will be still less so, — for 
thou livest not from month to month, but from second to second ! 
Enjoy thy existence more than thy manner of existence, and let 
the dearest object of thy consciousness be this consciousness 
itself! Make not the present a means of thy future; for this 
future is nothing but a coming present; and the present which 
thou despisest was once a future which thou desiredst." 

Richter, with all his shimmering metaphor and pictured fan- 
tasies, abounds in deep and sober thoughts, thoughts that rise 
and set like distant suns, moving in the orbit of eternity. Such a 
thought as this would be not unworthy of Plato: "A man can 
even here be with God, so long as he bears God within him. We 
should be able to see without sadness our most holy wishes fade 
like flowers, because the sun above us still forever beams, eter- 
nally makes new, and cares for all ; and a man must not so much 
prepare for eternity, as plant eternity in himself : eternity, serene, 
pure, full of depth, full of Hght, and of all else.'' 



VI. 
KLOPSTOCK. 

Friederich Gottlieb Klopstock (born 1724, died 1803) has 
been called ''the German Milton." He studied theology at Jena 
and Leipsic. After leaving the university he followed, for some 
years, the occupation of private tutor. 

The first three cantos of his "Messiah," a Christian epic, were 
published in 1748, at Langensalza. The poem was completed in 
1752, at Copenhagen, where its author was a guest of the King 
of Denmark. The publication of the first three cantos had at- 
tracted the attention of Bodmer, the Swiss critic, then an eminent 
authority on German letters, who had noted the Miltonic charac- 
ter of Klopstock's work. 

Klopstock's dramatic productions are of an inferior order; 
overwrought, overdrawn, and theatrically impossible. His fame 
rests almost solely upon his "Messiah," a poem which, although 
hardly equal as a whole to the "Paradise Lost," abounds in fervid 
religious sentiment and discloses a rich vocabulary, with much 
beautiful poetic imagery. His representation of the characters 
of the Disciples, from this poem, has been much admired for its 
delicate lacery of language and its sweetly pious thought. We 
quote from Roscoe's translation : 

"Now the last sleep. 
Last of his earthly slumbers, gently sealed 
The Saviour's eyes. In heavenly peace it came, 
Descending from the sanctuary of God 
In the still softness of the evening air, 
The Savior slept, and Sella meanwhile 
To the assembly with these words approached. 
Say who are they, whose eyes, bedimmed with grief, 

190 



KLOPSTOCK ~ 191 

Silent ascend the mountain? Sorrow's hand 
Their face has touched, yet harmed not, — ever such 
The grief of nobler souls ; haply some friend 
Wrapt in the silent arms of death they mourn, 
Their like in virtue. Then the Seraph thus : 
Those are the holy tv/elve, SeHa, 
Chosen ^by the Mediator." 

Sella, then, as the Disciples come into view, inquires concern- 
ing each of the ''holy twelve," and is answered in turn by the 
guardian angels of the various Disciples. The picture thus pre- 
sented, as the saints move in solemn review, Hke a heavenly con- 
stellation, is sublimely impressive, and is as beautiful and striking 
as the divine groups of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Noth- 
ing in Milton can be said to surpass it. The review closes with 
St. John, of whom it is said — 

«* * * ^Q fairer spirit 
On mortal man by the Creator's breath 
Was e'er bestowed, than the unspotted soul 
Of this disciple." 

And then the scene is finished with a group of angels hovering 
aloft— 

. <<* * * ^j^(j ^j|.]^ silent tenderness 
The seraphs o'er the loved disciple stood. 
So stand three brothers o'er a sister fair, 
In fondness gazing: on soft bedded flowers 
She sleeps in angel beauty, ignorant 
Of her blest father's hour of death; while they, 
Won by her silent loveliness, delay 
To break her golden slumbers." 

Klopstock's ''Messiah" was one of the books which exerted 
a most powerful influence upon the youthful imagination of 



192 KLOPSTOCK 

Goethe. In this connection a delightful anecdote is related by 
Prof. Boyesen in his biography of Goethe. Goethe's father was 
a staid, stern and practical German lawyer, who could not endure 
the fervid rhapsodies of Klopstock, and he would not permit a 
copy of the "Messiah" to remain in his home. But his wife, who 
was of a deeply sentimental nature, secretly procured a copy. 
Young Goethe and his little sister Cornelia, sharing their mother's 
ardent temperament, devoured the book most ravenously. They 
memorized practically the whole of it, and were accustomed to 
amuse themselves by impersonating Satan and his fiends. "Stand- 
ing on chairs in the nursery," says Prof. Boyesen, "they would 
hurl the most delightfully polysyllabic maledictions at each other. 
One Saturday evening, while their father was receiving a profes- 
sional visit from his barber, the two children (who were always 
hushed and subdued in his presence) were seated behind the 
stove, whispering sonorous curses in each other's ears. Cornelia, 
however, carried away by the impetus of her inspiration, forgot 
her father's presence, and spoke with increasing violence : 
"Help me ! help ! I implore thee, and if thou demandst it 
Worship thee, outcast ! Thou monster and black malefactor ! 
Help me ! I suffer the torments of death, the eternal avenger !" etc. 
The poor barber, frightened out of his wits by such extraordinary 
language, poured the soap-lather over the counsellor's bosom. 
The culprits were summoned for trial, and Klopstock was placed 
on the index expurgatorius." 

But such a book is not to be wholly cast away. If it possessed 
no other merit, it would deserve to be embalmed in the affections 
of posterity for having helped to fire the imagination and fashion 
the giant soul of Goethe. It was Klopstock who first showed forth 
the marvelous richness and fluency of the German language. He 
was, in a manner, the John-the-Baptist of the Golden Age of Ger- 
man Hterature. His "Messiah" was published before Schiller was 
born, and when Goethe was an infant of two years, and he was 
spared to be a witness of their triumphs, and of those literary 
glories which at first he saw "as through a glass, darkly," but 
with which he was afterward brought face to face. 

This more practical and material age has all but placed the 



KLOPSTOCK 193 

''Messiah" where Goethe's father placed it — on the index of 
things forbidden, or at least neglected. Nor is Klopstock's the 
only Messiah so cast out. But, in the endless process of the suns, 
younger Goethes will arise to track the aspirations of the heart 
or point the summits of the soul, and the Vision will not be lost 
to man. 



VII. 
WIELAND. 

One of the most illustrious authors of the German classical 
period was Christopher Martin Wieland, whose works are edited 
by Gruber in fifty-three volumes. Wieland was born at Oberholz- 
heim, Wurtemberg, in 1733. Like Lessing, he was the son of a 
preacher. Born with an innate aptitude for versification, some 
of his earliest productions attracted the attention of Bodmer, the 
Swiss critic, by whom he was invited to Zurich. There he re- 
mained for eight years, earning his living as a private tutor. 

In 1769 Wieland v/as appointed professor of literature and 
philosophy at the University of Erfurt. Three years later he was 
summoned to Weimar, to become the tutor to the two sons of 
Princess Amalie of Saxe-Weimar, Prince Karl August and his 
brother. Endowed by nature with a talent for versification, he 
had, from the days of his youth, devoted all his spare moments 
to literature. In 1764, at the age of thirty-one, he had published 
his satire on idealism, "Don Silvio von Rosalva,'' a prose work, 
followed by his "Comic Tales," in 1766. In 1767 his "Agatha" 
appeared, presenting some studies in Fielding and other English 
prose writers. His poetic tale, "Musarion," appeared in 1768. 
Then came his "Nadine," also in verse, in 1769. In 1772, the year 
in which he proceeded to Weimar, he published his "Der goldene 
Spiegel," wherein he attempts to depict the ideal social state. 

Wieland was thirty-nine years of age when he reached Wei- 
mar, in whose constellation of immortals he was to become an 
unfading star. He soon abandoned all other pursuits, and gave 
the remainder of his life wholly to the tasks of literature. He 
now established "The Germany Mercury," -a monthly journal of 
literature, which he continued to edit for thirty-seven years. 
This publication proved more profitable, from the financial view- 
point, than the journals edited by Goethe, Schiller, and other 



194 



WIELAND 195 

great Germans of the period. The whole of his journahstic work 
is pervaded by a sort of mild Epicurean philosophy, somewhat 
Addisonian in style, and tending to diffuse a gentle and kindly 
glow of cultural elegance over the life and letters of the time. 

The political genius of Wieland, like that of other intellectual 
giants of Weimar, was cosmopolitan in character. In furtherance 
of these views he published his satirical novel, ''Die Abdereiten," 
in 1774. His romantic epic, ''Oberon," published iii 1780, is now 
regarded as the best of his productions. Before going to Weimar, 
Wieland had translated twenty-two of Shakespeare's plays. In 
the latter part of his hfe he did much toward the revival of the 
Greek and Roman classics. He translated the Satires and Epistles 
of Horace, the Letters of Cicero, and some of the works of Euri- 
pides, Xenophon and Aristophanes. His literary style was urbane, 
elegant, polished, and distinguished rather more for fluency than 
force. He was not, like Lessing, a precisian. He was more 
rhetorical than Lessing, but less ornate than Richter. He wrote 
to please, rather than to convince, and in pleasing he was able to 
persuade. "If Lessing gave precision to modern German prose," 
says one, ''Wieland gave it elegance and fluency. His work, at 
once graceful and fanciful, is pervaded by a quaint humor and 
delicate irony that give it a lasting charm." Although his trans- 
lation is inferior to the later one of Schlegel, it was Wieland who 
first introduced Shakespeare to the German mind. A characteris- 
tic specimen of Wieland's prose style is the following from his 
essay on "Philosophy as the Art of Life:" 

"By far the greater part of the children of men never dreamed 
that there was such an art. People lived without knowing how 
they did it, very much as Mons. Jourdain, in MoHere's 'Citizen 
Gentleman,' had talked prose all his hfe, or as we all draw breath, 
digest, perform, various motions, grow and thrive, without one 
in a thousand knowing or desiring to know by what mechanical 
laws or by what combination of causes all these things are done. 
And in this thick fog of ignorance innumerable nations in Asia, 
Africa, America, and the islands of the South Sea, white and 
ohve, yellow-black and pitch-black, bearded and unbearded, cir- 
cumcised and uncircumcised, tattoed and untattoed, with and 



196 



WIELAND 



without rings through the nose, from the giants in Patagonia to 
the dwarf on Hudson's Bay, etc., etc., Hve to this hour. And not 
only so, but even of the greatest portion of the inhabitants of our 
enhghtened Europe, it may be maintained with truth, that they 
know as Httle about the said art of Hfe and that they care as 
little about it as the careless people of Otaheite or the half -frozen 
inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, who are scarcely more than sea- 
calves." 

Here we have a style of writing which will be at once recog- 
nized by students of English literature as the style made famous 
by Mr. Addison; little or nothing of the sublime, devoid of all 
passionate vehemence, and not distinctly sparkling; but in the 
highest degree entertaining, and productive of the gentler and 
more placid emotions, like those produced by the contemplation 
of beautiful objects. We find examples of the same style in Fene- 
lon's "Telemachus," and it abounds amid the beauties and graces 
of Virgil, Cicero and Horace. 

Such is Wieland. With his discursive pleasantries, his ironic 
dignity, his Epicurean, suave and soothing self-sufficiency, his 
flashes of scholarship which remind us occasionally of Montaigne, 
his mild and amiable preachments, he led his generation a long 
stride on the way to a brighter view of life, and passed away in 
1813, after a career devoted to the advancement of learning, the 
upbuilding of Hterary art and the glory of German letters. 



VIII. 
HERDER. 

"Herder paid us a visit, and together with his great learn- 
ing, he brought with him many other aids, and the later publica- 
tions besides. Among these he announced to us the 'Vicar of 
Wakefield,' an excellent work, with the German translation of 
which he wished to make us acquainted by reading it aloud to 
us himself." So says Goethe, writing of his student life at Stras- 
burg. It is a fitting introduction to the life and character of 
Johann Gottfried von Herder, the lover of good literature, the 
most pronounced bibliophile of the German classical age, and the 
personal friend of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Richter and Kant. 

Herder was born at Mohrungen, in East Prussia, in 1744. He 
rose to greatness over obstacles which few men have been able to 
surmount. He was the son of a poor schoolmaster, and his early 
life was a hand-to-hand struggle with poverty ; a contest in which 
he was handicapped by frail nerves and a weak physique. He 
studied at Koenigsburg • under Kant, and would have taken the 
course in medicine, but his health would not permit. He was 
enabled to remain at the university only by accepting the charity 
of those who perceived his merit and generously aided him in his 
struggles. He finished in theology, and then began to earn a 
meager Hving by teaching. In 1764 he was called to the Cathedral 
School at Riga. Health and sight failed him, and he went to 
recuperate in France, returning to Germany in 1769. He visited 
Strasburg for optical treatment, and here he met Goethe, then a 
student, and five years his junior. The two soon became friends, 
and it was through Goethe's influence that Herder was invited, 
in 1775, to assume the post of Court Preacher to the Duke of 
Weimar; and thenceforth, for the remainder of his life, he was 
a conspicuous member of that distinguished group of poets and 
philosophers who inhabited the German Athens. Two years be- 

197 



198 HERDER 

fore his death he received a patent of nobility from the Elector 
of Bavaria. He died in 1803, at the age of fifty-nine, generally 
beloved and admired, and his literary comrades at Weimar erected 
to his memory a monument bearing the inscription, "Light, Love, 
Life/' 

These three words epitomize the ideals for which he lived and 
died. His works have been published in sixty volumes, of which 
the best known are his "Poetry of the Races," "The Spirit of He- 
brew Poetry," "Ideas on the Philosophy of the Human Race," and 
a translation of "The Cid." In his "Poetry of the Races" he has 
taken the popular songs and ballads of nearly all the nations of 
Europe and rendered them into classical German with peculiar 
grace, fidelity and charm.. 

Herder is not at his best in his original poetic compositions. 
But in translating and interpreting the thoughts of others he had 
few equals and no superiors. In all his work in criticism, philoso- 
phy, philology and theology, he taught the unity of humankind 
and stressed the brotherhood of man. No man possessed a greater 
influence upon the minds of those with whom he came in contact, 
and his great literary associates were, in a manner, his pupils. 
His literary style, as well as his breadth of view, may be seen 
in the following, from his essay entitled "Tithon and Aurora:" 

"The timid nature of man, always compassed about with 
hope and fear, often prophesies distant evils as near, and calls 
that death which is only a wholesome slumber, a necessary, 
health-bringing relaxation. And so it generally deceives itself 
in its predictions concerning lands and kingdoms. Powers lie dor- 
mant which we do not perceive. Faculties and circumstances are 
developing themselves, on which we could not calculate. But 
even when our judgment is true, it usually leans too much on one 
side. 'If this is to live,' we say, 'that must die.' We do not con- 
sider whether it may be possible that both may hve and act 
favorably on each other. The good Bishop Berkley, who was no 
poet, was inspired by his beneficent zeal for America to write the 
following : 



HERDER 199 

Westward the star of empire takes its way; 

The four first acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the drama with the day, 

Time's noblest offspring is the last/ 

So prophesied the good-natured bishop, and if his spirit could now 
glance at yonder up-striving America, he would perhaps discover, 
with the same glance, that, in the arms of the old Tithon, Europe, 
also, a new Aurora was slumbering. Not four, scarcely three 
acts in the great drama of this still youthful quarter of the globe, 
are past; and who shall say how many times yet the old Tithon 
of the human race may and will renew his youth upon our earth !" 

A heartening and a comforting thought is this, written more 
than a century ago, for the needs of Europe in the day of her 
trial! Herder saw in death but the perpetual renewing of Hfe; 
and he saw in life a growth which, though changing its forms, 
never ceases ; a drama which changes scenes, but never ends. 

Dr. Matthew Arnold, the greatest English critic since Macau- 
lay, in his beautiful essay on ''Sweetness and Light," had this to 
say of Herder and Lessing: "Generations will pass, and literary 
monuments will accumulate and works far more perfect than the 
works of Lessing and Herder will be produced in Germany; and 
yet the names of these two men will fill a German with a rever- 
ence and enthusiasm such as the names of the most gifted mas- 
ters will hardly awaken. And why? Because they humanized 
knowledge; because they broadened the basis of life and intelli- 
gence; because they worked powerfully to diffuse sweetness and 
light, to make reason and the will of God prevail." 



IX. 
HEINE. 

After Goethe, Heinrich Heine was, in the opinion of many 
competent judges, the most gifted lyrical artist of Germany. 
Born at Dusseldorf, in 1799, of Hebrew parents, young Heine 
was destined for commercial pursuits, but early in life he revolted 
and gave his heart to literature. He was graduated in the law, 
but made no effort to follow his profession. 

Heine's first poems were published in 1822. Two years later 
he published another volume of verse, entitled ''Book of Songs," 
which was rendered into English by Sir Walter Scott. In 1844 
appeared "Neue Gedichte," containing some of his finest lyrics. 
Four books of his ''Reisebilder," or 'Travel-Pictures,'' appeared 
from 1826 to 1831, and gave to Heine, at once, his greatest fame 
and infamy. These sketches were pronounced "the most brilliant, 
the wittiest, the most entertaining, the most immoral, the coarsest, 
the most dangerous, the most revolutionary, the most atheistic 
books that any German author had ever printed.'' The work was 
forbidden in Germany and other monarchial countries because 
of its revolutionary doctrines. 

In 1831 Heine took up his abode in Paris, where he died in 
1856. A spinal malady confined him to his bed during the last 
eight years of his life, but during this period of suffering in what 
he termed his "mattress-grave" his mind remained undimmed 
and his literary activities were unabated. 

Heine's songs are among the sweetest ever written in any 
tongue, and in the world's literature he will forever rank among 
the masters of the lyric art. One of the most widely known of his 
songs is "The Lorelei," which is unsurpassed among the folk- 
songs of any people. These verses will illustrate its bewitching ^ 
sweetness : 



200 



HEINE 201 

I know not whence it rises 

This thought so full of woe; 
But a tale of times departed 

Haunts me, and will not go. 

The air is cool, and it darkens, 

And calmly flows the Rhine; 
The mountain-peaks are sparkling 

In the sunny evening-shine. 
And yonder sits a maiden, 

The fairest of the fair; 
With gold is her garment gleaming 

As she combs her golden hair. 

Although Heine was pre-eminently a poet, his prose style 
was remarkable for its incisive and flashing lucidity. A fine speci- 
men is this, from the ''Reisebilder,'' where he is comparing him- 
self with Don Quixote: 

"Perhaps, after all, you are right, and I am only a Don 
Quixote, and the reading of all sorts of wonderful books has 
turned my head, as it was with the Knight of La Mancha, and 
Jean Jacques Rousseau was my Amadis of Gaul, Mirabeau my 
Roland or Agramante; and I have studied too much the heroic 
deeds of the French Paladins and the round-table of the National 
Convention. Indeed, my madness and the fixed ideas that I 
created out of books are of a quite opposite kind to the madness 
and the fixed ideas of him of LaMancha. He wished to establish 
again the expiring days of chivalry; I, on the contrary, wish to 
annihilate all that is yet remaining from that time, and so we 
work with altogether different views. My colleague saw wind- 
mills as giants ; I, on the contrary, can see in our present giants 
only vaunting wind-mills. He took leather wine-skins for mighty 
enchanters, but I can see in the enchanters of to-day only leather 
wine-skins. He held beggarly pot-houses for castles, donkey- 
drivers for cavaliers, stable-wenches for court-ladies; I, on the 



202 HEINE 

contrary, hold our castles for beggarly pot-houses, our cavaliers 
for mere donkey-drivers, our court-ladies for ordinary stable- 
wenches. As he took a puppet-show for a state ceremony, so I 
hold our state ceremonies as sorry puppet-shows, yet as bravely 
as the brave Knight of La Mancha I strike out at the clumsy 
machinery. Alas! such heroic deeds often turn out as badly for 
me as for him, and I must suffer much for the honor of my lady." 

Such a writer is, indeed, fated to have a deal of trouble with 
established authority. Heine was not only democratic in his in- 
stincts; he was vindictively and pugnaciously so. He was not 
content at striking at his opponent — he must sneer at him; and 
blows are more readily forgiven than sneers. But he loved liberty, 
even though he sometimes confused the ideas of liberty and 
license. It was Heinrich Heine who said : *'If all Europe were to 
become a prison, America would still present a loop-hole of escape ; 
and God be praised! the loop-hole is larger than the dungeon 
itself." Matthew Arnold declared Heine to be **the most impor- 
tant German successor and continuator of Goethe in Goethe's 
most important line of activity," — that of **a soldier in the war 
of liberation of humanity." 

Heine thus speaks of his early pilgrimage to the shrine of 
Goethe: "When I visited him in Weimar, and stood before him, 
I involuntarily glanced at his side to see whether the eagle was 
not there with the lightning in his beak. I was nearly speaking 
Greek to him; but as I observed that he understood German, I 
stated to him in German that the plums on the road between 
Jena and Weimar were very good. I had for so many long winter 
nights thought over what lofty and profound things I would say 
to Goethe, if I ever saw him — and when I saw him at last, I said 
to him that the Saxon plums were very good I And Goethe smiled." 

But Heine, with all his wit and merriment, was by no means 
devoid of spiritual thought. He was a man who loved and hated 
and suffered much, and he learned, with Browning, that "Knowl- 
edge by suffering entereth." From his mattress-grave he cried 
out: "Wherever a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, 
there, also, is Golgotha !" He was a man of dual personality. He 
had his Bohemian side ; but there was another side, which appears 



t 



t 



HEINE 203 

in many of his songs, and in such anecdotes as this : 

"While I was standing before the cathedral at Amiens/' he 
says, ''with a friend who with mingled fear and pity was regard- 
ing that monument — built with the strength of Titans and deco- 
rated with the patience of dwarfs — he turned to me at last and 
inquired, 'How does it happen that we do not erect such edifices 
in our day T And my answer was, 'My dear Alphonse, the men of 
that day had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions; 
and something more than opinions is required to build a cathe- 
dral." 

Heine was correctly appraised by Gautier in these words: 
"Never was a nature composed of more diverse elements than that 
of Heine. He was at once credulous, tender, and cruel, sentimen- 
tal and mocking, refined and cynical, enthusiastic, yet cool-headed ; 
everything except dull." 



: X. 

WEBER. 

The literary movement begun in England by Keats and 
Wordsworth early in the nineteenth century and transmitted by 
them to Tennyson, had its altar fires carried to Germany by 
Friederich Wilhelm Weber. As Walter Scott was made a poet by 
reading and translating German ballads, so did Weber gain his 
first poetical inspiration from English verse. 

Weber was born Dec. 26, 1813, at Alhausen, Westphalia. 
Like La Fontaine, the French fabulist, he was the son of a forest- 
keeper. He first studied philology at Breslau, where he was a 
classmate of Gustav Freitag, the poet and dramatist. He then 
studied medicine, and thereafter travelled extensively in Ger- 
many, Italy and France. He practiced medicine in Driburg in 
1856, and was attending physician at a sanitarium in Lippspringe. 
He was elected to the Reichstag, and resided for the remainder 
of his life at Nieheim, in Westphalia, where he died April 5, 1894. 

Weber's genius flowered late in life. He was fifty-six years 
of age, and had then lived four years longer than Shakespeare, 
thirty years longer than Keats, twenty-six years longer than 
Shelly, nineteen years longer than Burns, and eleven years longer 
than Schiller had lived, before his soul burst forth in that divine 
efflorescence which thrilled, adorned and glorified the German 
Fatherland with its resplendent gift of song. In 1869 Weber 
gave to the world his translation of Tennyson's **Enoch Arden." 
Three years later he pubHshed his "Swedish Songs." In 1874 
he returned to his first love, and published a translation of Tenny- 
son's *'Maude." 

Not until 1876 did he, at the age of sixty-three, put forth his 
"Dreizehnlinden," the most popular poem ever produced in the 
German language; a poem which in its popularity with the Ger- 

204 



I 



WEBER 205 

man masses has outrivalled even ScheffeFs 'Trompeter von Saeck- 
ingen." In 1906 the one hundredth edition of **DreizehnHnden" 
was published by Rickelt, and the occasion was celebrated 
throughout Germany. Other editions have since been published. 

Weber pubHshed three volumes of lyrics, *Tlowers of Mary/' 
"Our Father," and "Autumn Leaves." 

In 1892, at the age of seventy-nine, he issued his "Goliath," 
an epic of the northern races; a poem which some critics have 
regarded as superior to the "Dreizehnlinden." His principal 
biographers are Schwering (1900) and Keiter (1903). Loewen- 
burg, in his "Dichterabende," published in 1904, places him among 
the first German poets of modern times. 

Aside from holding his seat in the Prussian legislature, 
Weber appears to have taken little or no interest in politics, and 
when not engaged in the active practice of his profession he led 
the calm, unostentatious life of a poet of nature, as quiet, peaceful 
and uneventful as that of Wordsworth at Grasmere and Rydal 
Mount. His simple, graceful and melodious numbers suggest the 
fascinating felicity of Keats, while his descriptions of nature 
transcend the beauties of Wordsworth. In canto five of the 
"Dreizehnlinden," for example, we catch the glow of evening, we 
hear the droning bee that has lost its way, we see the swallow 
circling home, while the Weser softly flows, and all nature sighs 
to rest in the full glory of a night in June. The poem is an epic 
song of the victorious fight of Christianity with Saxon paganism 
a thousand years ago. The life of the forest primeval is there; 
the dark, dank wilderness, the bog and fen, the tinkling springs, 
trickling among the mosses that yield to the tread of Saxon war- 
riors marching to the thunders of their Thor, while the. smoke 
of their altar fires is wreathed among the ancient boughs. Hard 
by is the monastery of the Thirteen Linden, whence the poem 
takes its name. In the fourth canto he depicts the monks, each 
one so life-like, so real, that his presence is both seen and felt. 
And, as in the great Christian epic of Tasso, there is the golden 
thread of romance interwoven throughout the tale — the love of 
Elmar, the heroic Lord of Goshawk Manor, for Hildegarde. In 



206 WEBER 

this, as in all of Weber's works, there is the powerful and ever- 
present Christian motif, rising like the tide and bearing down all 
before it. In him we find none of the mild pantheism of Words- 
worth; none of the sheer hedonism of Goethe. Throughout all 
his work there resounds the ringing note of the Christian faith, 
dominant and clear, virile and pure, surpassing in its tenderness, 
overwhelming in its power. In this sweet and prayerful spirit 
does he close his greatest poem : 

"Helf uns Gott den weg zur Heimat 
Aus dem Erdenland zu finden ; 
Betet fur den armen Schreiber 
Schliest den Sang von Dreizehnlinden." 

That so remarkable a poem has thus far escaped translation into 
English, and is almost wholly unknown to English readers, is to 
be attributed only to an oversight on the part of those who are 
capable of performing a w^ork of such value to modern culture. 
At the author's request, Rev. John Rothensteiner of St. Louis, 
Missouri, a gifted author of religious songs, has rendered into 
English the following verses from Weber's ''Herbst-Blaetter" — 
Autumn Leaves — which afford an excellent example of Weber's 
soulful piety and the placid sweetness of his lyric style: 

Was Life a Dream? 

Past eighty winters, here my journey ends ; 
Rest, pilgrim-staff, and let us vigil keep 
For Charon's boat across the mystic deep 
Whilst dreamlike o'er the past my spirit bends, 
• Recalling life's long pain and brief delight 
Like yonder sunset-clouds all golden bright. 



WEBER 207 

Was life a dream ? — A dewy springtide morn, 
Mysterious gloom of wild-wood beech and oak, 
The forest-ranger's lodge, the quick, sharp stroke 
Of woodman's ax, the post-boy's far off horn. 
The finches' happy song, the stockdove's call, 
And church bells chiming with the water-fall. 

Then bench and table in a whitewashed hall, 
A crowd of boys with faces roay-bright. 
Poring o'er book and script ; one man of might, 
Yet kind and mild, the guide and friend ot tvii. 
Homer and Plato in the niches low. 
And laughing Horace and great Cicero. 

A student corps with face-disfigurements. 
On each proud breast the vari-colored band; 
With wit and wisdom and with blade in hand 
Still rich in want and folly and good sense ; 
Keeping in song and wine the golden mean. 
With thoughts as high as eagles and as keen. 

A quaint old city in my native land. 
And endless battling then with drouth and death. 
To heal each pain, and ease the fevered breath. 
By grace of God, with skill and gentle hand. 
Long sleepless nights, and weary days and faint; 
Now grateful thanks, now much ungracious plaint. 

And many a bracing ride through winter snows. 
And walks along the spring-tide's pageantry ; 
But constant care and sorrow walked with me. 
And oft a prayer, a cry for help arose. 
But half my prayer was lost, and yet was made 
Complete by those that cared for me and prayed. 



208 



WEBER 



And many a night beneath the starry throng 
Returning from my day's work and the heat, 
Came rhyme on rhyme, as measured by the beat 
With which my palfrey's motion led my song. 
All gone, forgotten, what was born of night. 
Lost as it came in Time's eventful flight. 



But now meseems, I'm dreaming evermore; 
How long, h<^^^ long! — A kingdom God made known 
Beyond the sea of time, with great white throne; 
Aiar it seems to raise its glittering shore ; 
The darksome boatman stands and beckons me — 
God grant my soul the blest eternity. 



PART SEVEN 

GREAT BRITISH AUTHORS 



I. SHAKESPEARE 

II. SPENSER 

III. MILTON 

IV. ADDISON 

V. POPE 

VI. BYRON 

VII. SCOTT 

VIII. WORDSWORTH 

IX. DICKENS 

X. TENNYSON 



The English Linkage has a veritable power of ex- 
pression such £s, perhaps, never stood at the command 
of any other language of men. Its highly spiritual genius 
and v^onderfully happy development and condition have 
been the result of a surprisingly intimate union of the 
two noblest languages in Modern Europe, fhe Teutonic 
and the Romaic. It is well known in What relation these 
two stand to one another in llhe English tongue; the for- 
mer supplying, in fsr larger proportion, the material 
ground work; the latter, the spiritual conceptions. In 
truth a language, which by no mere accident has produced 
and upborne the greatest and most predominant poet of 
modern times, as distinguished from the ancient classical 
poetrji (I can, of course, only mean Shakespeare), may, 
with fill rig';.t, be called a world-language, and, like the 
English people, appears destined hereafter to prevail, 
with a sway more extensive even than its present, over 
all line portions of the globe. For in iwealth, good sense, 
and closeness of structure, no other of the languages at 
this day spoken deserves to be compared with it, — not 
even our German, which is torn, even as we are torn, 
2nd must first rid itself of many defects before it can 
enter boldly into the lists as a competitor with the 
English. 

— ^Jacob Grimm. 



SHAKESPEARE. 

William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564, 
and died there in 1616, at the age of fifty-two. The biographical 
data we possess concerning hin^ are too meager, unsatisfactory 
and unimportant to cast a ray of light upon his character. We are 
compelled to judge him by his work. But such judgments are not 
always true. Shakespeare, like Lope de Vega, wrote to please the 
multitude rather than to instruct it. He was wholly of the stage. 
It was for him both home and workshop. All we certainly know 
of him lends force to the conviction that the theatre was the law 
of his love and life. His intellect was nurtured in this dramatic 
diathesis. One should be chary of seeking too much self -revelation 
in the plays of such an author. Books have been written about 
"Shakespeare as a Lawyer," etc.; etc., from information vouch- 
safed in his plays. It seems that all such works are violative of 
the cardinal principles of Hterary criticism. Shakespeare was not 
writing lawbooks, nor works upon theology, medicine or logic. In 
passing judgment upon a literary work we must consider the 
author's intent. We have no right to consider a tragedy as a work 
on criminal jurisprudence. Shakespeare was primarily a play- 
wright. 

Because of the slender knowledge extant concerning his per- 
sonalit}', the authorship and even the existence of Shakespeare 
have been questioned in recent years. Some have thought it im- 
possible that an unlearned actor, such as Shakespeare certainly 
was, could have written the plays and poems ascribed to him. But 
a minute study of the Shakespearean works will quickly dispel 
the illusion that these works bear intrinsic evidence of scholar- 
ship. Others have thought that so great a man must have made 
a greater stir than did Shakespeare ; that he should have been at 
least as well known as Sir Francis Bacon. The soundness of that 

209 



210 SHAKESPEARE 

view is by no means apparent. Great men are not seldom ignored 
by those immediately surrounding them. Shakespeare's occupa- 
tion was not respected in his day. Moreover, in actual scholar- 
ship, he was greatly inferior to Ben Johnson, Marlowe, and other 
dramatists of the time. He was a skilled adapter and compiler 
of the work of other men, which he often passed as his own, a 
faculty not likely to win the highest encomiums from his own 
associates. 

As a writer of comedy Shakespeare will hardly be accepted 
as the superior of Moliere, whose mode of life much resembled 
that of the English bard; in fertility of invention he was vastly 
inferior to Lope de Vega, whom he resembles in temporal success ; 
and in sheer depth and force of intellect, in breadth of scholarship 
and ripeness of culture, he is not to be compared with Goethe. 
As a writer of tragic poetry only, he lacked the pristine fire of 
the Greek masters and the classical correctness of the French. 
Where, then, is his superiority? His excellence is due almost 
wholly to his intuitive knowledge of the human emotions. Here 
his wisdom is truly prodigious, and he rises to almost super- 
natural stature. He was the most sensitive and the keenest of 
all observers. He was omniscient in his perceptivity, ubiquitous 
in his perspicacity, overmastering in the abysmal reach of his 
passion-voicing power. What he saw he felt, and what he felt 
his consummate artistry translated to the minds of men. He 
could truly say with his own Othello: "This is the only witch- 
craft I have used." He viewed, with an infinite sagacity, 
and with a single all-sweeping glance, the perimeter of 
human conduct. Seldom indeed has it been given to the 
eye of mortal man to see the inmost secrets of hearts as 
Shakespeare saw them; to read them as they were read by his 
all-seeing and unerring eye ; or to voice the tumults of the soul as 
he has uttered them, linked with the eternal harmonies and rapt 
in the rythm of a deathless truth. Here, then, is the secret of 
his mastery, his mystery and his power. In the face of self- 
evident genius of the most exalted type, critics fain would search 
for scholarship. They would see Shakespeare's diploma! Not 
only would Bacon's scholarship have been without value in pro- 



I 



SHAKESPEARE 211 

ducing the Shakespearean creations; it would have made them 
impossible. As Hudson says, in his introduction to King Lear 
(taking the thought from Dryden), "Had he been more addicted 
to looking at Nature through 'th^ spectacles of books', or through 
other mxen's eyes, he would probably have seen less of her inward 
meaning, and been less happy and less idiomatic in his trans- 
lation of it." However pleasing to pedantic vanity may be the 
theory that the great dramatic poet was versed in the lore of 
books, the plays themselves afford conclusive evidence to the 
contrary. Had Shakespeare been learned in the historical and 
classical literature familiar to the cultured minds of his genera- 
tion, he could not have displayed so much ignorance regarding 
the lives and times described in many of his plays. 

Enough has been presented by modern scholarship to show 
that, in at least the most accessible of the fields of learning at 
that time (history and biography), Shakespeare cannot be re- 
proached with scholarship. Who does not envy Scott's old 
cavalier knight in Woodstock, with his *'Will Shakespeare says" 
forever on his tongue? We know that old Sir Henry had no 
commentaries in his edition; that the bard he knew was the old 
magician himself, Shakespeare unannotated and unadorned, mag- 
nificent in his mystery, adorable in his beauty, inexplicable and 
unexplained. But, so patiently and passionately have his de- 
votees pursued him. in their anxiety to trace those mystic veins 
of virgin gold to the mother-lode, that they have but too well 
succeeded. 

Historical research has now fairly established the fact that 
not a single one of the plays, nor a single one of the great poems 
attributed to him, is in plot, thought and verbiage wholly original 
with him. No finished work that bears his glorious name is 
original in its entirety. In some instances he has paraphrased, 
and in other places he has deliberately taken the words of other 
writers, placed them in the mouths of his own characters, and 
thus used them as his own. Rut his characters, once he has 
touched them, become peculiarly and distinctly his own. The 
whole history of art discloses no creation bearing more clearly 
the mark and stamp of exclusive individuality. The play may 



212 SHAKESPEARE 

be a time-worn theme or another's plot, but the characters are 
Shakespeare's very own. In his essay on Quotations and Origi- 
nality, Emerson observes: ''When Shakespeare is charged with 
debts to authors, Landor replies, 'yet he was more original than 
his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them 
into life'." So he did. Shylock and Hamlet were well-known 
characters in the older drama before Shakespeare heard of them. 
But not until he touched them with the wand of his mystic power 
did they become instinct with life. 

Among all the women of the stage, where shall we find such 
another group of feminine intellects as Portia, Isabella, Beatrice 
and Rosalind? Or such beautiful creatures of passion as Juliet, 
Helena, Perdita, Viola, Ophelia and Miranda? Where such char- 
acters of the affections as Hermione, Desdemona, Imogen and 
Cordelia? One may almost hear the rustle of their garments as 
they pass. 

Sir John Falstaff, of protuberant abdomen, swaggering, un- 
gracious gait and braggart speech, drinking and swearing and 
lying, hearty and jolly withal, grunting with comfort and reek- 
ing with ale, still treads the boards alone and greets us with his 
loud guffaw. And there are Slender and Justice Shallow, and the 
inimitable Dogberry, as Ulrici called him "the clown par excel- 
lence," who insisted upon being written down an ass — in official- 
dom the climax of absurdity, but none the less true to type as 
the ebullience of legalism and the efflorescence of village politics. 
Who can forget Jaques, "the melancholy Jacques," who could 
"suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs?" Or 
Touchstone, of whom Hudson said "he is the most entertaining 
of Shakespeare's privileged characters"? There, too, is the asi- 
nine Bottom, still rehearsing "most obscenely and courageously." 
The fairies "fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes," and he 
calls for "a bottle of hay." So do the airy spirits mingle with the 
clownishness of this world. Fairies! Queen Mab, "no bigger than 
an agate-stone on the forefinger of an alderman"; Puck, and 
Ariel, Titania and her dewy train ! Were there ever such fairies 
as we find in Shakespeare ? Of all the dramatists, he alone seems 
to possess the gift of the occult, the mastery of the supernatural. 



SHAKESPEARE 213 

Of the historic and tragic characters we need say nothing now. 
The reader who has not wept with Othello, shuddered at Macbeth 
or been moved by the tragic spirit of Hamlet, is impervious to 
human feeling and devoid of human passion. Indeed, we may say 
with Macaulay: "The characters of which he has given us an 
impression as vivid as that which we receive from the characters 
of our own associates, are to be reckoned by the score." In this 
respect he leaves all other dramatists far behind. ''Compare him 
with Homer, the tragedians of Greece, the poets of Italy, Plautus, 
Cervantes, Moliere, Addison, Le Sage, Fielding, Richardson, 
Scott, the romancers of the elder or later schools," says Henry 
Hallam — "one man has far more than surpassed them all. Others 
may have been as sublime, others may have been more pathetic, 
others may have equalled him, in grace and purity of language, 
and have shunned some of his faults ; but the philosophy of Shake- 
speare, his intimate searching out of the human heart, whether 
in the gnomic form of sentence, or in the dramatic exhibition of 
character, is a gift peculiarly his own." 

Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria, calls him "Our myriad- 
minded Shakespeare." Thomas Carlyle, in his essay on "Char- 
acteristics of Shakespeare," says: "If I say that Shakespeare is 
the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him." But 
he was not the greatest of intellects. He was not the greatest of 
poets. But, as a painter of human character, his work has not 
been equalled in any nation or in any age. Shakespeare, as none 
before or since have done, could read the message of the soul and 
speak the language of the heart. 

"Great he may be justly called," Professor Blair observed in 
his lecture on English tragedy, "as the extent and force of his 
natural genius, both for tragedy and comedy, are altogether un- 
rivaled. But, at the same time, it is a genius shooting wild ; de- 
ficient in just taste, and altogether unassisted by knowledge or 
art. Long has he been idolized by the British nation; much has 
been said, and much has been written concerning him; criticism 
has been drawn to the very dregs, in commentaries upon his 
words and witticisms; and yet it remains, to this day, in doubt, 
whether his beauties or his faults be greatest. * * * * All these 



214 SHAKESPEARE 

faults, however, Shakespeare redeems, by two of the greatest 
excellencies which any tragic poet can possess; his lively and 
diversified paintings of character; his strong and natural expres- 
sions of passion. These are his two chief virtues; on these his 
merit rests." 

So vast, indeed, is the diversity of his portraiture of human 
passion that the human soul knows no attitude in which the great 
painter has not limned it forth in all its lights and shades, in all 
its beauty and its truth, and placed it in the endless gallery of 
his art, for the wonder and admiration of the ages. ''Amid so 
many portraitures," as Taine has remarked, we must, perforce, 
''choose two or three to indicate the depth and nature of them 
all;" for "the critic is lost in Shakespeare as in an immense town; 
he will describe a couple of monuments, and entreat the reader to 
imagine the city." 



II. 

SPENSER. 

Born in 1552, Edmund Spenser was nine years older than 
Bacon, and twelve years older than Shakespeare. He was a native 
of London, and took his master's degree at Cambridge in 1576. 
Three years later he published his "Shepherd's Calendar," which 
Dryden proclaimed to be without an equal in any language, fur- 
ther declaring that it placed Spenser in the class of Virgil and 
Theocritus. This pastoral, in twelve books, was the first really 
forceful and sustained effort in English poetry since the days of 
Chaucer, and was immediately recognized as the work of a master, 
although it betrays the diff useness, prolixity, pedantic phraseology 
and tendency to grotesque exaggeration which too often mar 
Spenser's style, and it by no means justifies the extravagant 
encomium of Dryden. However, it won warm praise from Sir 
Philip Sidney and a meager patronage from the powerful and 
popular Earl of Leicester, one of the favorites of Queen Elizabeth. 

At about this time the poet was appointed secretary to Lord 
Grey, but recently created Lord Deputy of Ireland. With his new 
chieftain he at once entered upon the turbulent duties of the 
British service in that unhappy island — a work which was to 
occupy the remainder of his life. Spenser and Sir Walter Raleigh 
were both with Lord Grey at the tragedy of Smerwick, where six 
hundred of the Irish, after having peacefully and voluntarily sur- 
rendered their arms, were cruelly massacred by order of the 
English general. Raleigh, it is said, was captain of one of the 
bands of executioners. It is not beheved that the poet took any 
part in this or other armed engagements, but it is certain that 
he was at all times an eloquent defender of Lord Grey's merciless 
and remorseless regime. 

With but occasional visits to England, Spenser remained in 
Ireland from the time of Desmond's rebelHon in 1580 until the 

215 



216 SPENSER 

outbreak of Tyrone's rebellion in 1599. Many of the events of 
those terrible years, when the English attempted to exterminate 
the entire population of Munster, are calmly reported by Spenser 
in his document entitled "View of the present State of Ireland." 
Spenser went to Ireland for no romantic purpose; but, as Dean 
Church in his biography observes: *'He came to make his for- 
tune as well as he could, and he accepted the conditions of place 
and scene, and entered at once into the game of adventure and 
gain which was the natural one for all English comers, and of 
which the prizes were lucrative offices and forfeited manors and 
abbeys. And in the native population and native interests, he 
saw nothing but what called forth not merely antipathy but deep 
moral condemnation. It was not merely that the Irish were ig- 
norant, thriftless, filthy, debased and loathsome in their pitiable 
misery and despair; it was that in his view, justice, truth, honesty, 
had utterly perished among them, and therefore were not due to 
them. Of any other side of the picture he, like other good English- 
men, was entirely unconscious; he saw only on all sides of him 
the empire of barbarism and misrule which valiant and godly 
Englishmen were fighting to vanquish and destroy — fighting 
against apparent but not real odds. And all this was aggravated 
by the stiff adherence of the Irish to their old religion." 

Such was the harsh and gloomy setting in which Spenser 
took up the work of writing that splendid allegory 'The Faery 
Queen," a poem distinguished for its elevated religious tone, its 
dreamy enchantment, its softness of coloring, delicacy of fancy 
and the melodious beauty and harmony of its numbers. It is one 
of the longest poems in the English language. It is more than 
twice as long as MUton's great epic, or Tennyson's Idylls of the 
King. But few of the greater English poems display such a 
lavish profusion and richness of imagery, a musical cadence so 
exquisite, stately, and unfailing, or a versatility so fascinating 
and exhaustless. Little wonder that Spenser has been a favorite 
with so many of our greater poets. He was admired by Shake- 
speare. Hallam thinks him superior to Ariosto. Cowley says 
that he was made a poet by reading Spenser. Dryden says: 
"Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original." 



SPENSER 217 

Pope found the Faerie Queen an unfailing joy in both youth and 
age. Matthew Arnold said: **His verse is more fluid, slips more 
easily and quickly along, than the verse of almost any other 
English poet." Campbell calls him, because of the luxurious har- 
mony of his colorings, the ''Rubens of English poetry." No poet, 
indeed, has made a more profound impression upon the poets who 
have followed him. A pronounced defect of the piece, however, is 
the cringing, sycophantic and odious truckling to arbitrary power 
by means of an utterly shameless and nauseating flattery of the 
vain, capricious and ill-tempered Queen of England. As Gloriana, 
Elizabeth is made empress of all true nobility ; as Belphoebe she is 
represented as the princess of all sweetness and beauty ; as Brito- 
mart the armed votaress of all purity, and as Mercilla, the lady 
of all compassion and grace! 

The reader may catch the langorous charm of his verse from 
the following excerpt, describing the dwelling of Morpheus: 

And more to lull him in his slumber soft, 

A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down. 

An ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, 

Mix't with a murmuring wind much like the sowne 

Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoon. 

No other noise, nor people's troublous cries. 

As still are wont t' annoy the walled town. 

Might there be heard ; but careless Quiet Hes 

Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemies. 

In 1595, in celebration of his marriage, Spenser produced his 
Epithalamion, one of the greatest of EngHsh lyrics, and probably 
the finest composition of its kind in any language. But, in less 
than four years, the Irish stormed his castle of Kilcolman, and 
the poet and his young wife barely escaped with their lives, leaving 
their babe to perish in the flames. Spenser reached England in 
a state of despair, and died soon thereafter, having published but 



218 SPENSER . , 

half of the *Taery Queen." The remaining six books, if they 
were ever completed, perished with the poet's child in Kilcolman 
castle. Thus died the first of the great Elizabethan poets. Critics 
like Macaulay may complain of his tedium — a defect common to 
most allegorical tales — but none will deny that Spenser was the 
first to show forth the spacious beauties of English speech. He 
is buried in Westminster Abbey, near the tomb of Chaucer. 

His limpid, liquid note is thus intoned by Keats: 
"A silver trumpet Spenser blows. 

And, as its martial notes to silence flee, 
From a virgin chorus flows 

A hymn in praise of spotless Chastity. 
'Tis still! Wild warbKngs from th' Eolian lyre 
Enchantment softly breathe, and tremblingly expire." 



L 



III. ' 

MILTON. 

His soul was like a star and dwelt apart. 

— Wordsworth. 

John Milton, the most learned man that ever dipped pen in 
the ethereal fountains of English verse, was born Dec. 9, 1608, 
eight years before the death of Shakespeare. He was a native 
of London, received his early education at St. Paul's school, near 
his home, and at sixteen entered Christ's College at Cambridge, 
where, during a seven years' course, he took both his bachelor's 
and master's degrees. Meanwhile, his father, a scrivener, had 
acquired a competence and retired to a country seat at Horton, 
whither his gifted son followed. 

At Horton, Milton pursued an elaborate course oi self -culture, 
whereby he designed to perfect himself in the literature of Greece 
and Rome, as well as in the modern languages. He acquired a 
complete mastery not only of Greek and Latin, but of Hebrew, 
Syriac, Italian, French, Dutch and other European languages. 
During his six years at Horton he composed L'Allegro, II Pen- 
seroso, Comus and Lycidas, and emerged from his retirement as 
one of the first lyric poets of the age. Indeed, his L'Allegro and 
II Penseroso have never been surpassed in English verse. 

He now departed for Italy, where he was to spend fifteen 
months. At Paris he met the great Dutch writer, Hugo Grotius. 
He interviewed Galileo at Florence. At Naples he visited the 
Marquis of Villa, then in his old age, who had in his youth be- 
friended Tasso. At every point he visited the great libraries, met 
the literati, and studied assiduously to perfect himself in litera- 
ture. To distinguish himself as the author of a great poem had 
been the dream of his Hfe, and it was an ideal which, throughout 
his busy and varied career, he never for one moment relinquished. 

219 



220 MILTON 

In 1639 he returned to England, and opened a school for boys in 
London. 

At the age of thirty-five he contracted a marriage which 
proved unhappy. Four years after the death of his first wife he 
married again. His second wife died in fifteen months. In 1663 
he contracted a third marriage. He was, in modern times, the 
first great advocate of divorce, and his utterances upon woman- 
kind in general do not mark him as one who would, in any circum- 
stances, find the domestic relation particularly happy. 

In 1649 he was made Latin secretary to Cromwell. Overwork 
in this office was the immediate cause of his blindness. At the 
age of forty-three his eye-sight was wholly gone. However, he 
continued in his office until 1658. With the Restoration in 1660 
Milton, blind and poor, became a fugitive, but he was afterwards 
included in the general amnesty. Now, at the age of fifty-two, he 
seriously set to work upon the poem which had been the ambition 
of his life, and which he had meditated upon various occasions for 
a quarter of a century. During the preceding twenty years he 
had published some twenty-five tracts, and had achieved fame 
as a master of polemical warfare, although much of his prose is 
mere epideictic display. But in all these wordy digladiations is 
the battle-trump of an orotund style, resonant, strong and clear, 
bearing down all obstacles in the roll and sweep of its majestic 
power. "It is to be regretted," says Macaulay, "that the prose 
writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As com- 
positions they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to 
become acquainted with the full power of the English language. 
They abound with passages compared with which the finest decla- 
mations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect 
Field of Cloth of Gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroi- 
dery It is to borrow his own majestic language, *a seven- 
fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies'." Mark Pat- 
tison, too, in his biography of Milton, is similarly impressed with 
the magnificence of Milton's prose. Says he: "They are monu- 
ments of our language so remarkable that Milton's prose works 
must always be resorted to by students as long as English remains 



MILTON 221 

a medium of ideas." As James Russell Lowell said, "It was an 
organ that Milton m.astered, mighty in compass, capable equally 
of the tempest's ardors or the slim delicacy of the flute ; and some- 
times it bursts forth in great crp.shes through his prose, as if he 
touched it for solace in the intervals of his toil." 

We know more of the details of Milton's life than of any 
author of his time. His biography in six octavo volumes by David 
Masson is one of the most exhaustive works of its kind in the 
English language. It may, however, be epitomized as a life of 
hard work, political controversy, and superhuman diligence in the 
pursuit of learning. Liberty was the consuming and obsessing: 
passion of his life, and to its hallowed service he gave his best 
years in controversy with royalty upon the one hand and Puri- 
tanism on the other. Like Lessing in Germany, he struggled 
unceasingly for the freedom of the press, and his "Areopagitica" 
will forever remain among the conspicuous monuments erected 
to the freedom of speech. Of freedom he said: 

**None can love freedom heartily but good men ; the rest love 
not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope or more 
indulgence than under tyrants. Hence it is tyrants are not oft 
offended by, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all 
naturally servile ; but in whom virtue and true worth is most emi- 
nent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters ; against 
them lies all their hatred and corruption." 

But not until his public career was ended, his period of storm 
and stress was over and his life's work was nearly done, did Mil- 
ton find leisure for his greatest work. Then it was, when ambi- 
tion's hopes were withered and most earthly ties were severed; 
then, when in blindness and poverty his sun was sinking among 
the clouds, did the farewell beam.s of his mighty genius burst upon 
the world in a flood of eternal light. When the raucous voice of 
controversy became inaudible to his ear the celestial voices en- 
tered and the noise of the rabble gave way to the harmonies of the 
infinite. When the carnal beauties of the world faded away be- 
fore his sightless eyes, ''the celestial light shone inward," and he 
visualized the gleaming armaments of Heaven in their glorious 



222 MILTON 

pageantry of golden light. Then did his mighty harp vibrate to 
the unseen touch, and the Spirit vouchsafed answer to his prayer; 

" what in me is dark 

Illumine, w^hat is low raise and support ; 
That to the height of this great argument 
I may assert Eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to men." 

The Paradise Lost was finished in 1665, and was published 
two years later. For grandeur and sublimity it is unequalled in 
the English language, and its elevated style is matched in modern 
times by none but Dante. The thunder-roll of his noble periods 
finds no echo in the English tongue. **The Paradise Lost is looked 
upon, by the best judges, as the greatest production, or at least 
the noblest work of genius, in our language," says Joseph Addison. 
Samuel Johnson says : ''Before the greatness displayed in Milton's 
poem, all other greatness shrinks away." Hume declared him to 
be "the most wonderfully sublime of any poet in any language — 
Homer, Lucretius and Tasso not excepted." Certainly the his- 
tory of literature affords no other example of a work so stupen- 
dous in its magnificence, brought to completion under conditions 
less conducive to perfection in literary work. 

''His blindness seems to have been complete before 1654," 
writes Hallam in his Literature of Europe; "and I scarcely think 
that he had begun his poem before the anxiety and trouble into 
which the public strife of the commonwealth and the Restoration 
had thrown him gave leisure for immortal occupations. Then 
the remembrance of early reading came over his dark and lonely 
path like the moon emerging from the clouds. Then it was that 
the muse was truly his; not only as she poured her creative in- 
spiration into his mind, but as the daughter of Memory, coming 
with fragments of ancient melodies, the voice of Euripides, and 
Homer, and Tasso ; sounds that he had loved in youth, and treas- 
ured up for the solace of his age. They who, though not enduring 



f MILTON ~ 223 

the calamity of Milton, have known what it is, when afar from 
books, in solitude or in travelling, or in the intervals of worldly- 
care, to feed on poetical recollections, to murmur over the beauti- 
ful lines whose cadence had long delighted their ear, to recall 
the sentiments and images which retain by association the charm 
that early years once gave them — they will feel the inestimable 
value of committing to the memory, in the prime of its power, 
what it will easily receive and indelibly retain." 

But Miltqn's memory, marvelous as it was, did not alone suf- 
fice. He was obliged to call upon his daughters, and when they, 
perchance, rebelled, upon his friends, to read to him the countless 
works whose beauty and whose truth he was to transfuse, in the 
alembic of his genius, into the priceless gems of his poesy. Some 
writers have intimated that Milton owed his Paradise Lost to 
Grotius, to Vondel, or to Andreini. The drama of the fall of man 
was presented by Hugh Grotius in "Adamus Exsul." The same 
theme was exploited by another great Dutchman, Joost Van den 
Vondel, in his "Lucifer" and his *'Adam Ballingschap." Andreini 
attempted an Italian play, or sacra rappresentazione, in manner 
and form resembling the Spanish auto. But none of these produc- 
tions could have been of great service to Milton, although he was 
familiar with them all. He is nearer to Vondel only because both 
took Sophocles and Euripides for their models. 

In 1671 'Taradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes" were 
published. "Nothing," says Goethe, "has ever been done so en- 
tirely in the sense of the Greeks, as Samson Agonistes." In 1674 
Milton died, as one has said, "old and blind and fallen on evil 
days," yet "with his Titanic proportions and independent loneli- 
ness, the most impressive figure in English literature." Let us 
quote, in conclusion, from the beautiful tribute of Gray: 

"He passed the flaming bounds of place and time — 
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze. 
Where angels tremble, while they gaze, 
He saw ; but, blasted with excess of light, 
Closed his eyes in endless night." 



IV. 
ADDISON. 

Joseph Addison, born May 1, 1672, the son of an EngHsh 
clergyman, entered Oxford at the age of fifteen, and soon became 
noted for his proficiency in Latin verse. On leaving Oxford in 
1699 he was, through the instrumentality of Lord Halifax, granted 
a pension of about $1,500.00 per annum, and soon set forth upon 
a continental tour in order to perfect himself in the modern lan- 
guages, and augment his qualifications for the diplomatic service. 

At Paris he met Boileau and Malebianche. H^ travelled over 
France, Italy, Switzerland and parts of Germany and returned to 
England after an absence of nearly four years, only to find his 
pension discontinued and his friends bereft of power. For his 
living he was forced to rely upon his pen. At this lov/ sla'Te of his 
fortunes there happily intervened the battle of Blenheim. "It 
was a famous victory," as old Kasper said, but at the time there 
was apparently a woeful lack of British poets to properly record 
its fame. It was Addison's opportunity. At this juncture he was 
approached by an emissary of the government with the request 
that he indite a few lines, in praise of the great Duke of Marl- 
l)orough and his "famous victory." Addison responded with "The 
Campaign," a poem which was at once immensely popular, but 
which has been preserved from oblivion by its one beautiful and 
powerful simile, wherein he likens Marlborough, in the heat of 
battle, to the angel of the tempest, which 

"Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." 

Addison was now safely and irrevocably launched upon a po- 
litical career. His political faction not only lauded him as the 
greatest of living poets, but showered him with official prefer- 
ments as well. In his short but brilliant life — for he died at 
forty-seven — he held the office of Under-Secretary of State, Sec- 

224 



ADDISON 225 

retary of State, was twice Secretary of Ireland, and for many 
years sat as a member of Parliament. His popularity did not 
wax and w^ane with the fortune?, of his political party, but con- 
tinued to the end of his life. And the reason is not far to seek. 

It is difficult to imagine a more equable temperament than 
that of Joseph Addison. Whether we find him immersed in prob- 
lems of international politics, winning or losing political cam- 
paigns, writing tragedies or Lati.: verses, whiling away an eve- 
ning with friends over a social bottle at Button's, or busying him- 
self with plans for the ''Spectator," he was ever the serene and 
gentle spirit that still gleams in the pages of his essays. Neither 
the envenomed jealousy of Pope nor the petulance of Steele, 
neither the taunts of political partisans nor the envious shafts of 
literary rivals could provoke his wrath or mar the classic dignity 
of his unruffled poise. It is difficult, indeed, to dissociate the per- 
sonaHty of Addison from his essays. He could truly have said, 
with Montaigne, *1 am my essays." 

It is as an essayist only that we must consider him. Without 
the charming pages of the Spectator, the Freeholder, the Guardian 
and the Tatler, posterity would hardly concern itself about his 
other works, notwithstanding Boileau's praise of some of his 
verses, and notwithstanding Voltaire's opinion that Addison's 
"Cato" ranks above the tragedies of Shakespeare. 

Addison made morality fashionable. That was his great 
achievement. In the words of Taine, 'Tor the first time, Addison 
reconciled virtue with elegance, taught duty in an accomplished 
style, and made pleasure subservient to reason." The style of the 
essays, for the purposes intended, is inimitible. It is wanting in 
that fire and spirit which the French call "verve." It does not 
possess the rugged strength which distinguishes Lessing among 
the Germans. It is not so polemical as that of either Milton or 
Macaulay. Yet in his chosen field and upon his own ground, ther*^ 
are few prose writers, in any language, who may be regarded as 
superior to Joseph Addison. 

Addison intrigues the reader by his ingratiating courtesy, 
his polite deference, his broad humanity, his uniform civility. He 
can, upon occasion, be archly pohtic. His piquant grace, his tact- 



226 ADDISON 

ful, gliding elegance, his moderation and calmness, are resources 
which never fail ; while, over all his harmonious phrasing, his bal- 
anced sentences, and the purling suavity of his rounded periods, 
there are suffused the rosy lights of a modest gayety, a sweet 
reasonableness, an urbane sanity, which weave a captivating 
spell. In this fashion did Addison lead his generation to higher 
literary levels than it had known before, while divorcing literature 
from vice. Every reader is familiar with Samuel Johnson's fam- 
ous pronouncement, in his Lives of the Poets : ^'Whoever wishes 
to attain a>n English style, familiar,, but not course, and elegant, 
but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes 
of Addison." Macaulay declared that ''His best essays approach 
near to absolute perfection, nor is their excellence more wonderful 

than their variety As a moral satirist he stands unrivalled. 

If ever the best Tatlers and Spectators were equalled in their own 
kind, we should be inclined to guess that it must have been by th<^ 
lost comedies of Menander. If we wish to find anything mor<e 
vivid than Addison's best portraits, we must go either to Shake- 
speare or to Cervantes." 

Two of Addison's shorter poems are of unusual quality. Both 
are profoundly religious in sentiment. The first is an ode of grati- 
tude for his safe return from his continental tour. We shall qu"te 
but a single stanza : 

"How are thy servants blest, Lord! 

How sure is their defense! 
Eternal wisdom is their guide. 

Their help Omnipotence." 

The poet Robert Burns said, in a letter to Dr. Moore, that this was 
the first poem he ever knew, and he describes its powerful effect 
upon his childish fancy. The other famous ode of Addison's is 
the well-known hymn, beginning 

'The spacious firmament on high." 

His Christian optimism is disclosed in the following excerpt 
from No. 381 of the Spectator: "An inward cheerfulness is an im- 



ADDISON 227 

plicit praise and thanksgiving to Providence under all its dispen- 
sations. It is a kind of acquiescence in the state wherein we are 
placed, and a secret approbation of the Divine Will in his conduct 
towards man." After studying these beautiful essays, and the 
still more beautiful character of their author, one is impelled to 
exclaim, with Thackeray: "Comm.end me to this dear preacher 
without orders, this parson in the tie-wig. When this man looks 
from the world whose weakness he describes so benevolently up 
to the Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a 
human face lighted up with a more serene rapture, a human in- 
tellect thrilling with purer love and adoration than Joseph Addi- 
son." 



V. 
POPE. 

From the age of Milton to that of Byron the greatest name 
in English poesy is that of Alexander Pope. Thackeray calls him 
"one of the greatest literary artists England has seen." 

Born in 1688, his life of forty-six years was a struggle with 
almost every adverse condition which could possibly beset the 
human frame. He was a life-long invalid. In physical stature he 
was almost a dwarf, being but four feet in height. He was so 
frail as to be unable to dress himself without assistance. In ad- 
dition to these physical handicaps he was born and reared a Ro- 
man Catholic, and was thus, by the harsh laws of the time, de- 
barred from public office and from many lucrative professions. 
But one career was open to him, and that was literature. For 
it he sedulously prepared himself. He was almost entirely self- 
educated, never having attended school after his twelfth year. 

Pope's compositions are all models of meticulous care. No 
author, before or since his day, has worked harder to subject every 
sentence to the highest degree of polish. He overlooks nothing. 
He leaves nothing undone to impart the keenest brilliance and the 
most perfect balance to each line and stanza of his work. He is, 
therefore, as Johnson says, "read with perpetual delight." 

Says Taine, the French critic, discussing the youthful tri- 
umphs of Pope: "At sixteen, his pastorals bore witness to a 
correctness which no one had possessed, not even Dryden. To 
read these choice words, these exquisite arrangements of syllables, 
this science of division and rejection, this style so fluent and pure, 
these graceful images rendered still more graceful by the diction, 
and all this artificial and many-tinted garden of flowers which he 
called pastoral, people thought of the first eclogues of Virgil. * * * 
When later they appeared in one volume, the public was dazzled. 
The same year the poet of twenty-one finished his Essay on 

228 



POPE 229 

Criticism, a sort of Ars Poetica. It is the kind of a poem a man 
might write at the end of his career, when he has handled all 
modes of writing, and has grown gray in criticism; and in this 
subject, whose treatment demands a whole literary life, he was 
in an instant as ripe as Boileau." In this poem, says Dr. Johnson, 
Pope has given us "the finest simile in our language:" 

"Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise." 

From the same poem the follownig well-known lines are taken: 

"Good nature and good sense must ever ;;oin: 
To err is human ; to forgive, divine." 

Pope's Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard, the most notable of 
his poems of passion and tenderness, was received with a burst 
of enthusiasm. In it "the beauty of his imagery and descriptions, 
the exquisite melody of his versification, rising and falling like 
the tones of an Eolian harp, have never been surpassed." Johnson 
declared it among "the happiest productions of the human mind." 
It was rapturously praised by De Quincey and others. Lord Byron 
preferred it to the famous ode r.f Sappho. A few lines will indi- 
cate the trilhng, harmonic sweetness of the poem. At the close 
of the portrait of the innocent nun, she is made to say : 

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot ! 

The world forgetting, by the world forgot: 

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! 

Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned ; 

Labor and rest, that equal periods keep; * 

Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep ; 

Desires composed, affections ever even; 

Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to heav'n. 

Grace shines around her, with serenest beams, 

And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams. 

For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms, 



k 



230 POPE 

And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes; 

For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring, 

For her white virgins hymeneals sing; 

To sounds of heavenly harps she dies away, 

« 
And melts in visions of eternal day." 

Of Pope's Rape of the Lock, considered thfe greatest master- 
piece of the sprightly style, Leslie Stephen said: "No more bril- 
liant, sparkhng, vivacious trifle is to be found in our literature." 
It is probably the greatest mock-heroic poem in any language. 
"It is," says Johnson, "the most airy, the most ingenious, and the 
most delightful of all Pope's compositions." 

At the age of twenty-five Pope began his translation of 
Homer. He was already rated as the greatest hving poet. The 
six volumes of the Illiad were published during the years 1715- 
1720. This publication rendered his fame secure, and placed him 
an immeasurable distance above and beyond all poets then living 
in England. Pope's Homer lacks fidelity to the original text, but, 
for all that, Johnson called it "the noblest version of poetry the 
world has ever seen." Gray predicted that no other translation 
would ever equal it. Byron said that as a boy he read it with 
rapture, and that no one would ever put it aside except for the 
original. From this work Pope reaped a profit of about $40,000. 
He had now gained both means and leisure to conduct his war on 
the Dunces. Pope was of a nervous, suspicious and irritable na- 
ture, given to introspection, his morbid mind naturally dwelling 
upon fancied injuries, and he decided, once for all, to even up all 
scores- with hfs literary rivals. In this design he was encouraged 
by his ardent though indiscreet friend Dean Swift, himself the 
greatest satirist of the time, and to whom the Dunciad was dedi- 
cated. The poem abounds in sharp and cutting thrusts and dis- 
plays a wealth of genius worthy of a far better purpose. But 
the keenest and most finished bit of satire Pope e\er wrote was 
the malevolent but powerful characterization of Addison, which 
appeared in the prologue to the Satires, and in which he said that 
Addison could 



POPE 231 

"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." 

Pope's Essay on Man is possibly the work with which the 
majority of his readers are most familiar, li is bniiiaid in «^"yle 
and finish, and rich in epigram. There is nothing exactly like it 
elsewhere. It abounds in popukr passages, and among the most 
familiar are these lines : 

"Vice is a monster of such horrid mien, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
Yet seen too oft, fan:iliar with her face. 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

And these: 

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; 
Man never is, but always to be blest." 

And this familiar couplet : 

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; 
The proper study of mankind is man." 

This work, with its doctrine that "whatever is, is right," to- 
gether with its numerous philosophical speculations, drew replies 
from Voltaire in France, from Lessing in Germany, and from 
Crousaz, a Swiss philosopher. 

In his introductions and prefaces. Pope often displays great 
power as a writer of lucid prose, as well as a vast critical insight. 
Thus, in the preface to his translation of Homer, he says : "Homer 
was the greater genius; Virgil, the better artist; in the one, we 
mxost admire the m.an : in the other, the work. Homer hurries us 
with a commanding impetuosity ; Virgil leads us with an attractive 
m.ajesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion; Virgil be- 
stows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours 
out his riches with a sudden overflow; Virgil, like a river in its 
banks, with a constant stream. And when we look upon their 
machines. Homer seems like his own Jupiter, in his terrors, shak- 



232 POPE 

ing Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; 
Virgil, like the same power, in his benevolence, counselling with 
the gods, laying plans for empires, and ordering his whole crea- 
tion." It is doubtful if any critic, ancient or modern, has so splen- 
didly and succinctly compared the two great epic masters of 
antiquity. 

Pope's imitations of Horace are among the most delightful 
of his creations, and are quite as charming as the original. Among 
his shorter poems his Universal Prayer is one of the most beauti- 
ful. Nothing can be finer than this : 

"Teach me to feel another's wo, 

To hide the fault I see : 
That mercy I to others show, 

That mercy show to me." 

He wrote too little in this simple strain. This poem and an 
ode. The Dying Christian to His Soul (written at the request of 
Steele) , show Pope at the height of his lyric power. They breathe 
forth a solemn purity, a noble tenderness and a softened, subdued 
and modest dignity so deeply consonant to the sweet serenity of 
prayer. 

In his fifty-sixth year, after a life of strife and pain. Pope 
passed away so peacefully that the watchers at his bedside could 
not distinguish the moment of his death; so peacefully, indeed, 
that it seemed as if the powers of nature, hushed in the presence 
of expiring genius, had obeyed the behest of his own beautiful ode: 

"Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, 
And let me languish into life !" 



VI. 
BYRON. 

Lord George Gordon Byron, the foremost English poet since 
Alexander Pope, is pre-eminently the great revolutionary poet of 
modern times. 

Born in 1788, just as the wave of revolution was threatening 
to submerge all nations in its mighty sweep, he reached maturity 
at the close of the so-called Napoleonic wars, when his precocious 
love of liberty and his inborn sense of justice were rudely shocked 
to behold a w^orld shackled in the meshes of the Holy Alliance and 
writhing hopelessly in the gyves of tyranny, stupidity and cant. 

The publication (at the age of nineteen) of his "Hours of 
Idleness" having evoked an exasperating criticism in the Edin- 
burg Review, Byron replied with his stinging "English Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers," in the year 1809, and in the same year de- 
parted for a tour of the Mediterranean countries. He returned 
in two years, and at once pubhshed the first two cantos of "The 
Pilgrimage of Childe Harold." His reputation was thus imme- 
diately established, at the early age of twenty-two. In his own 
words, "I woke to find myself famous." In the next four years 
he pubhshed "The Corsair," "The Siege of Corinth," and a num- 
ber of other metrical tales which greatly increased his fame. And 
then, in 1815, he married. His troubles now began. Within a 
year his wife left him, nobody knew exactly why. Gossip busied 
itself with mendacious tales. Churhsh mediocrity, Puritan 
prudery, snobbishness and cant, with their maudhn blubberings, 
perceived their chance. Slander unleashed its envemoned dart. 
They drove forth the proud spirit they could not bend, and they 
made his name a byword and an hissing among the people. In 
1816 he left England to return no more. 

He now had but eight more years to Hve. But they were 
busy years — years crowded with great works, such as "The Pri- 

233 



234 BYRON 

soner of Chillon," ^'Manfred,'^ ^'Mazappa," ^'Don Juan," the last 
two cantos of ''Childe Harold" ard indeed, the greater part of his 
life's work. Yet we are solemnly told that the period of his volun- 
tary exile was a period of almost total depravity, a riot of unre- 
strained dissipation. The marvel is that so vast a volume of 
wonderful creations could have proceeded from a single pen in so 
short a time. But his enemies have preferred to slight his crea- 
tions and magnif^^ his recreations. 

Lord Macaulay, who is usually wise even when he cannot be 
just, is neither wise nor just in his estimate of Byron. "And a 
few years more will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical 
potency which once belonged to the name of Byron," he wrote, in 
1830. But Matthew Arnold wrote, in 1881, of Byron and Words- 
worth : ''When the j^ear 1900 is turned, and our nation comes to 
recount her poetic glories in the century which has then just 
ended, the first nam.es with her will be these." English critics in 
g-eneral, have not comprehended Byron as have the greatest intel- 
lects of other lands. The Frenchman, Taine, observes that ''all 
styles appear dull beside his," and that "he is so great that from 
liim alone we shall learn more truths of his country than from all 
the rest combined." Taine says that Byron's "Manfred" is "tvvln- 
fordther to the greatest poem of the age, Goethe's Faust." Goethe 
said of Byron: "The English can show no poet who is to be com- 
pared v/ith him I cannot enough admire his genius," 

€oethe advised Eckermann to learn English only to read Byron, 
mud added: "A character of such eminence has never existed 
before, and will probably never comie again. Tasso's epic has 
maintained its fame, but Byron is the burning bush v/hich reduces 
tlie cedar of Lebanon to ashes." Taine concludes: "If Goethe 
was the poet of the universe Byron was the poet of the individual ; 
mid if, in one, German genius found its interpreter, the English 
g-enius found its interpreter in the other." 

From the verdict of Goethe and Taine there is no dissent on 
the continent of Europe. "What," asks Castelar, "does Spain not 
©we to Byron ? From his mouth came our hopes and fears. He 
has baptized us with his blood. There is no one with whose being 
some song of his is not woven." Dr. Karl EIze, an authority on 



BYKON 235 

the English classics, who held the chair of English literature in 
the University of Halle, names Byron as one of the four greatest 
poets of England, and also marks him as the intellectual parent 
of Lamartine and Musset in France, of EsDronceda in Spain, of 
Puschkin in Russia, of Heine in Germany, and of Berchet in Italy. 

The great Italian Giuseppe Mazzini, in one of the most beau- 
tiful essays he has given to the v/orld, discusses and compares 
Byron and Goethe. 

''Never did 'the eternal spirit of the chainless mind' make a 
brighter apparition amxongst us," he says of Byron. "He seems at 
times a transformation of that immortal Prom.etheus, of whom he 
has written so nobly ; whose cry of agony, yet of futurity, sounded 
above the cradle of the European world; and whose grand and 
mysterious form, transfigured by time, reappears from age to age, 
between the entombment of on.^ epoch and the accession of an- 
other, to wail forth the lament of genius, tortured by the presenti- 
ment of things it will not see realized in its time When 

he heard the cry of nationahty and liberty burst forth in the 
land he had loved and sung in early youth, he broke his harp and 
set forth. While the Christian Powers were protocolizing or 
worse — while the Christian nations were doHng forth the alm.s 
of a few piles of ball in aid of the Cross struggling with the Cres- 
cent, he, the poet, and pretended skeptic, hastened to throw his 
fortune, his genius, and his life at the feet of the first people that 
had arisen in 'the name of the nationahty and liberty he loved. ... 

"The day will come when democracy will remember all that 
it owes to Bj-ron. England, too, will, I hope, one day remember 

the mission — so entire English, yet hitherto overlooked by her 

which Byron fulfilled on the Continent; the European role given 
by him to English literature, and the appreciation and sympathy 
for England which he awakened amongst us. 

"Before he came, all that was known of English literature 
was the French translation of Shakespeare, and the anathema 
hurled by Voltaire against the 'intoxicated barbarian.' It is since 
Byron that we Continentahsts have learned to study Shakespeare 

and other Enghsh writers England will one day feel how 

ill it is— not for Byron but for herself— that the foreigner who 



236 BYRON 

stands upon her shores should search in vain in that temple which 
should be her national Pantheon, for the poet beloved and admired 
by all the nations of Europe, and for whose death Greece and Italy 
wept as it had been the noblest of their own sons." 

Mazzini's rebuke is but too well deserved. When Byron, at 
Missolonghi, in 1824, had given his life for Greece, the Greek 
chieftains desired that he should sleep in the Temple of Theseus, 
at Athens. English friends, however, preferred that he should 
rest with the poets in Westminster Abbey. But when the body 
arrived in England the Dean of Westminster closed the doors of 
the English Pantheon against the ashes of the noblest English- 
man of the nineteenth century, and the funeral precession moved 
sadly northward to Newstead Abbey, the ancestral seat of the 
poet's family. 

"When I was a boy I read Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. From 
that hour I have hated oppression in all its forms." The speaker 
was a United States Senator, William Joel Stone. The incident 
is recalled as showing the world-wide influence of the great Eng- 
lish poet who revered Washington, admired Franklin, eulogized 
Daniel Boone, referred to Patrick Henry as "the forest-born 
Domesthenes," and who said: ''Give me a republic. The king- 
times are fast vanishing; there will be blood shed like water and 
tears like mist, but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall 
not live to see it, but I foresee it." In the "Chillon" poem, in 
"Prometheus," and, indeed, wherever innocence and virtue tremble 
in the clutch of tyrannic power, Byron shows unfeigned sympathy 
for those who suffer and are cast down. Always and everywhere 
in the strife between freedom and autocracy, Byron is the friend 
of man. 

Taine regards "Don Juan" as Byron's masterpiece. But that, 
we suspect, is only a characteristically French judgment. There 
are brilliant passages in all his poems. And there is very little of 
his work that fails to sustain the reader's interest. This is espe- 
cially true of Childe Harold. Everywhere are sunbursts of genius 
which light his pages with a glow that dims not with the lapse 
of time. Byron abounds in the sublime and beautiful. He may 
not be always correct. Nor is the diapason of the tempest always 



BYRON 237 

correct, when measured by the musical scale; but it drives its 
message home. And so does Byron speak in words that cause 
the blood to mount, whether he voice the passions of the heart 
or paint the splendors of the storm. There is in him, as Swin- 
burne said, **the splendid and imperishable excellence which covers 
all his offenses and outweighs all his defects; the excellence c\i 
sincerity and strength." 

Byron struck the note of grandeur and sublimity as it was 
struck by no other English poet excepting Milton. His apostrophe 
to the ocean, at the end of Childe Harold, is an example of this 
quality which is unsurpassed in any language. His description of 
Waterloo, in the third canto of this poem, stands alone. Beside 
it all other descriptions are colorless and mute. According to 
Longinus, the primary source of the sublime in writing is boldness 
and grandeur of thought. In this respect, Byron will not suffer 
in comparison with Homer or the Hebrew Scriptures. Consider, 
for example, his "Destruction of Sennacherib," closing with these 
lines : 

"And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Has melted like snow in the glance of the Lord." 

Or his "Darkness" : 

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 

The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 

Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 

Swung bhnd and blackening in the moonless air," etc. 

Similar examples could be adduced without number. So powerful 
has been the appeal of the awful and the supernatural in Byron 
that he has been often called the poet of gloom, of melancholy, of 
hopeless woe. But such critics overlook both "Beppo" and ''Don 
Juan." 

And there is another side of Byron, neither awe-inspirino* 
and terrible, nor frivolous and amusing, but of surpassing lyrical 
beauty, sweetness and grace, such as "Fair Thee Well," "She 



238 BYRON 

Walks in Beauty," "Know Ye the Land," "The Isles of Greece," 
"Maid of Athens," and other poems of like character. Sir Walter 
Scott has truly said : "As various in composition as Shakespeare 
himself, Lord Byron has embraced every type of human life, and 
sounded every string on the divine harp, from its slightest to its 
most powerful and heart-astounding tones." 

Byron was versed in Latin and Greek, and translated from 
both languages. He was master of Italian and French, but knew 
little of Spanish and no German. Of Goethe, who knew and un- 
derstood him so well, he himself says that he knew nothing ex- 
cepting a part of Faust which was read to him and orally trans- 
lated by a friend. He adored Alexander Pope almost to the point 
of fanaticism, detested Wordsworth, and was a devoted admirer 
of Dante, Tasso and the other Italian immortals — preferring Tasso 
to Milton. 

As we are unable to trace Byron to any yparticular model, so 
also, are we unable to point to his successor. Like Dante, he rules 
alone. Like the lightning from the cloud he came, and to the 
stormy elements he has returned. He has burned his way into 
the hearts of men, and his fame will last while literature endures. 



VII. 

SCOTT. 

Sir Walter Scott, the founder of the historical novel, and 
composer of some of the most stirring and beautiful martial 
poetry ever written in the British isles, was born in Edinburgh, 
August 15, 1771, the son of a Scotch lawyer. Young Scott was 
called to the bar in 1792, and carried on a desultory practice for 
fourteen years, but was at no time wedded to his profession. 

Scott was thoroughly conversant with Spanish, French, Ital- 
ian and German. He first became seriously interested in litera- 
ture through his study of German. His first publication was a 
translation, in 1796, of two of Burger's ballads. In 1799 he pub- 
lished his translation of Goethe's ''Goetz von Berhchingen." From 
his early youth Scott had been a student of the ballad. In 1802, 
at the age of thirty-one, he gave to the world his "Border Min- 
strelsy," which gained for him immediate popularity. With the 
pubHcation of **The Lay of the Last Minstrel," in 1805, he became 
the most popular poet of the day. "Marmion" followed in 1808, 
and ''The Lady of the Lake," in 1810. His later poetical works 
were not so well received. In 1814 the first of his novels, "Waver- 
ly," appeared, followed by that incomparable succession of ro- 
mances during the next eighteen years, which made their author 
the most popular prose writer in all the world. He continued to 
write until his paralytic hand could no longer grasp the pen, and 
death came in 1832, about six months after the death of Goethe. 

Scott is not among the greatest of poets, and yet in his 
greater poems there are lines which will never die. While love 
of country endures in the hearts of men, the patriot will not for- 
get these lines from the first stanza. Canto vi., of 'The Lay nf 
the Last Minstrel" : 

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
239 



240 SCOTT 

Who never to himself has said, 

This is my own, my native land ! 
Whose heart has ne'er within him burn'd 
As home his footsteps he has turned 

From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ! 
For him no minstrel raptures swell; 
High though his titles, proud his name. 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, — 
Despite those titles, power and pelf, 
The wretch, concentered all in self. 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust from whence he sprung, 
Unwep't, unhonor'd and unsung." 

Many critics have thought "Marmion'' to be superior to all 
the other metrical creations of Scott. Certainly no poem of his 
abounds in more fine passages, or has a greater tendency to fire 
the blood. What can be finer than his description of the castle, 
in the first canto ? 

"Day set on Norham's castled steep. 
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, 

And Cheviot's mountains lone: 
The battled towers, the donjon keep. 
The loophole grates, where captives weep, 
The flanking walls that round it sweep, 

In yellow luster shone. 
The warriors on the turrets high, 
Moving athwart the evening sky, 

Seem'd forms of giant height. 
Their armor, as it caught the rays. 
Flashed back again the western blaze, 

In lines of dazzhng light." 



SCOTT 241 

These lines, with two succeeding stanzas, are seldom equalled 
in descriptive poetry. Indeed, the entire poem abounds in beau- 
ties which so strike the ear or touch the heart of mankind as to 
assure the immortality of the work. Such, for example, is this, 
from the sixth canto: 

"0 Woman ! in our hours of ease 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
And variable as the shade 
By the light quivering aspen made; 
When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
A ministering angel thou." 

Such lines may not present the highest form o± poetry ; but, 
nevertheless, they cannot be forgotten. It may be doubted if 
there was ever penned a more stirring picture of a battle scene 
than this, from the same canto, stanza 32 : 

"The war that for a space did fail. 
Now trebly thundering swell'd the gale. 

And — Stanley! was the cry; 
A light on Marmion's visage spread. 

And fired his glazing eye: 
With dying hand, above his head. 
He shook the fragm.ent of his blade, 

And shouted ''Victory! — 
Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on ! 
Were the last words of Marmion." 

Mackintosh says that "The Lady of the Lake has nothing so 
good as the death of Marmion." But where shall we find a sweeter 
bugle note than the song in the first canto of The Lady of the 
Lake : 

"Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er, 

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; 
Dream of battlefields no more," etc. 



i 



242 SCOTT 

The Highland boat song, in the second canto, is another mas- 
terpiece. The famous battle scene in the sixth canto of The Lady 
of the Lake may be said to at least rival anything in Marmion — 
or elsewhere in poetry of its kind. Particularly striking is the 
18th stanza. The reader can almost hear the clash of sword and 
lance, as the cry rings out — 

''Where, where was Roderick then! 
One blast upon his bugle horn 

Were worth a thousand men !" 

Scott was inspired to write fiction, he tells us, by reading 
the novels of Cervantes. The success of "Waverly" was so com- 
plete that Scott devoted the greater part of the remainder of his 
life to writing historical novels. Seldom has the world witnessed 
such an unbroken train of literary successes— Kenilworth, Old 
Mortality, Ivanhoe, Redgauntlet, Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, 
Rob Roy — we need not enumerate the well remembered names. 
A hundred years have passed, and their hold upon the public 
cannot yet be said to be broken. 

Scott gained almost a million dollars by his writings, and lost 
it all. The failure of his publishers involved him to the extent 
of half a million dollars. The last six years of his life were spent 
in a brave struggle to pay the debt. Struggling against advanc- 
ing age and the insidious approach of disease, he battled on, and 
could he have lived another ten years he would have paid it all. 
He had earned nearly $200,000.00 for his creditors, when he 
breathed his last, at his beloved Abbottsford, on September 15, 
1832. 

Scott was the kindliest and most genial of men. As one of 
his old Scotch companions said of him, "whether drunk or sober, 
he was aye the gentleman." He lived an innocent and wholesome 
life, and he leaves no pointed word to soil his memory. When 
death approached he called for Lockhart, his son-in-law. "Lock- 
hart," said he, "I may have but a minute to speak to you. My 
dear, be a good man — be virtuous — be religious — be a good man. 
Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie 
here." 



VIII. 
WORDSWORTH. 

William Wordsworth was born in 1770. He was graduated 
from Cambridge at the age of twenty-one. After two visits to 
France, and an attempt to take part with the Girondists in the 
French Revolution, Wordsworth returned to England to spend 
(with the exception of an occasional excursion) the remainder 
of his uneventful life in the country, chiefly at Grasmere and 
Rydal Mount, in the lake region, Early in life he became intimate 
with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The two poets visited Germany 
in 1799, where Coleridge perfected himself in German and began 
his translation of Schiller's ''WfJlenstein.'' 

Wordsworth's first volume vv^as "Lyrical Ballads," published 
jointly by himself and Coleridge, in 1798. This volume marks 
the beginning of the Romantic movement in EngHsh poetry, and 
is epochal in its literary significance. The volume contains Cole- 
ridge's "Ancient Mariner," but the greater portion of the remain- 
der was the work of Wordsworth. The book was repubhshed in 
1800 and in 1802. His "Ode to Duty" was brought out in 1805, 
and the "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality" in 1806. "The 
Excursion" and "Laodamia" were published in 1814. Other poems 
followed at intervals during the next twenty years. He wrote 
practically nothing during the last fifteen years of his life. When 
Southey died, in 1843, Wordsworth was appointed Poet Lau- 
reate, an honor which he at first refused and was with difficulty 
induced to accept. Seven years later he died, at the age of eighty. 

For at least a quarter of a century, and during the period in 
which he was producing his best work, Wordsworth was obliged 
to endure the combined assault of all the great critics in England 
and Scotland, besides the scorn of the majority of the poets of 
his day. But his faith in himself , in his work, and in his mission, 
at no time faltered. He cared nothing for praise or blame, and 

243 



244 WORDSWORTH 

seldom read any of the criticisms of his works. 

Wordsworth was no great lover of books. But his love of 
nature amounted to an infatuation. His love of rocks and lakes 
and flowers and trees was almost as vehement and personal as 
that which is recorded of St. Francis of Assisi, in Section XH. of 
"The Mirror of Perfection." Nearly the whole of his long life 
was devoted to the serene contemplation of nature's grandeur 
and beauty, and to companionship with the elements. Far from 
the busy haunts of men, drinking in the splendors of the sunset 
or the glories of the dawn, weaving his dreams among the flitting 
clouds, claimiing comradship with the mountains and the stars, 
with ear attuned alike to the carol of the lark or the whisper of 
the leaf, Wordsworth knew and loved the natural world as no 
other English poet ever did. And it is this love and this knowl- 
edge which gleam, in all his works, with an intensity which draws 
his devotees as if obsessed by a spell, and makes of his following 
a cult. "The very image of Wordsworth," writes De Quincey, for 
example, "as I prefigured it to my own planet-struck eye, crushed 
my faculties as before Elijah or St. Paul." 

As Mathew Arnold says (Essays in Criticism), "Words- 
worth's poetry is great because of the extraordinary power with 
which Wordsworth feels the joy oflfered to us in nature, the joy 
offered to us in the simple primary affections and duties; and 
because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after 
case, he shows us this joy and renders it so as to make us share 
it." But when Dr. Arnold, in the same essay, places Wordsworth 
before all English poets excepting Milton and Shakespeare, before 
all the French since Moliere, before all the Germans excepting 
Goethe, and before all the Itahans since the sixteenth century, 
he goes farther than many judicious critics will care to accom- 
pany him. 

Saintsbury declares that the greater odes of Wordsworth are 
unsurpassed by any poet, not even excepting Milton. It is in his 
odes and sonnets, indeed, that Wordsworth strikes the majestic 
note which places him far above the majority of the poets of 
his time. Of these splendid productions the following sonnet is 
an example: 



WORDSWORTH 245 

"The world is too much with us : late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers : 
Little we see in nature that is ours; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
The winds that will be howling at all hours. 
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; 
For this, for everything, we are out of tune ; 
It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
Or hear old Triton blov/ his wreathed horn." 

An excerpt from his great ode on "Intimations of ImmortaHty" 
is quoted in the essay on Plato, on page 44 of this volume. An- 
other of his most beautiful poems is the one entitled "Lines com- 
posed a few miles above Tintern Abbey." It is in these lines that 
he gives us so much that we may now characterize as truly 
"Wordsworthian." A specimen phrase is this: 

"That best portion of a good man's life, — 
His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
. Of kindness and of love." 

In this poem we also find these characteristic lines : 
[ "A sense sublime 

I Of something far more deeply interfused, 

fe-' Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

^' And the round ocean and the living air 

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, — 

A motion and a spirit that impels 

All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 

And rolls through all things." 



246 WORDSWORTH 

In another of his poems he says : 

*Tlain living and high thinking are no more. 
The homely beauty of the good old cause 
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, 
And pure religion breathing household laws." 

In the same spirit he writes this, in a letter to a friend: "It is 
an awful truth, that there neither is nor can be any genuine en- 
joyment of poetry among nineteen out of twenty of those persons 
who live, or wish to live, in the broad light of the world — among 
those who either are, or are striving to make themselves, people 
of consideration in society. This is a truth, and an awful one; 
because to be incapable of a feeling of poetry, in my sense of the 
word, is to be without love of human nature and reverence for 
God." 

Such thoughts, expressed with such a deep sincerity and 
spiritual earnestness in his poetry, at first shocked his generation, 
and then subjected it to his will. In Wordsworth there is peace, 
because he engenders a train of thought which ends in the holy 
calm of a soothed and rested mind. John Stuart Mill, in his 
Autobiography, says : 'What made Wordsworth's poems a medi- 
cine for my state of mind, was that they expressed not mere out- 
ward beauty, but states of feeling, and of thought colored by 
feeling, under the excitement of beauty. They seemed to be the 
very culture of the feelings which I was in quest of. In them I 
seemed to draw from a source of inward joy, of sympathetic and 
imaginative pleasure, which could be shared by all human beings, 
which had no connection with struggle or imperfection, but would 
be made richer by every improvement in the physical or social 
condition of mankind. From them I seemed to learn what would 
be the perennial sources of happiness, when all the greater evils 
of life shall have been removed. And I felt myself at once better 
and happier as I came under their influence." 

Wordsworth had, in his own beautiful words, listened to the 
"still, sad music of humanity," and grasped the rythm of its 
secret chords. Upon the whole, there is no better summary of 



WORDSWORTH 247 

his work than the sentence uttered by Keble, author of the 
"Christian Year," who claimed for him ''that he had shed a celes- 
tial light upon the affections, the occupations, the piety of the 
poor.'' 



IX. 



DICKENS. 

Charles Dickens is the Shakespeare of the novel. He lives 
in his characters. We may speak of the books of other authors. 
But with Dickens the case is far different. We are not interested 
so much in the novels as we are in the striking personages who 
inhabit them. Mr. Pecksniff exists for us, apparently, quite in- 
dependently of the novel "Martin Chuzzlewit." We do not, in 
the ordinary sense, re-read "The Pickwick Papers." We simply 
renew our acquaintance with Sam Weller and Mr. Pickwick. Not 
to know these amiable creatures is to miss half the joy of life. 
Not to know them connotes a degree of ignorance approximating 
the stupidity of persons unacquainted with the commonest facts 
of history. Critics have decried the work of Dickens because of 
what they term its tendency to caricature, its approach to the 
grotesque, its proneness to exaggeration. If this indictment is 
to be taken as true, and if, in consequence, we may truly say 
that the people of Dickens are not drawn from life, then, indeed, 
so much the greater genius is Dickens, whose "Imagination bodies 
forth the forms of things unknown," and whose wondrous gift 

"Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

Are there, then, no Pickwicks in the world ? If not — all the worse 
for the world! Does little Nell exist only in Heaven, a kind of 
glorified Beatrice in Paradise? Perhaps. Out of the fullness of 
his own experience let the reader judge. But if the Dickens 
characters are not of this world, if we are never to meet them 
in the highways and byways of life, then it behooves us to seek 
without delay those enchanted realms of the imagination wherein 
they dwell. Let the Scotch poet, Alexander Smith, be our guide : 

"If Mr. Dickens's characters were gathered together," says 



248 



DICKENS 249 

he, "they would constitute a town populous enough to send a 
representative to Parliament. Let us enter. The style of archi^ 
tecture is unparalleled. There is an individuality about the build- 
ings. In some obscure way they remind one of human faces. 
There are houses sly-looking, houses wicked-looking, houses 
pompous-looking. Heaven bless us ! what a rakish pump ! What 
a self-important town-hall. What a hard-hearted prison! The 
dead walls are covered with advertisements of Mr. Sleary's circus. 
Newman Noggs comes shambling along. Mr. and Misses Peck- 
sniff come sailing down the sunny side of the street. Miss Mercy's 
parasol is gay; papa's neckcloth is white and terribly starched. 
Dick Swiveller leans against a wall, his hands in his pockets, a 
primrose held between his teeth, contemplating the opera of 
Punch and Judy, which is being conducted under the management 
of Messrs. Codling and Short. You turn a corner, and you meet 
the cofRn of little Paul Dombey being borne along. In the after- 
noon you hear the rich tones of the organ from Miss LaCreevy's 
first floor, for Tom Pinch has gone there to live now ; and as you 
know all the people as you know your own brothers and sisters, 
and consequently require no letters of introduction, you go up 
and talk with the dear old fellow about all his friends and your 
friends, and towards evening he takes your arm, and you walk 
out to see poor Nelly's grave." 

We no longer require the guidance of the Scotch poet. Re- 
turning in the gloaming we pass through Dingley Dell. Wardle's 
hearty laughter rings among the rafters of the old farm house 
and lingers along the lonely vale, where sundry figures creep from 
among the shadows. Note the gruff old sailor, with the bright- 
faced boy at his side. Anon we hear a voice : 

"Wal'r, my boy, in tfie Proverbs of Solomon you will find the 
following words: 'May we never want a friend in need nor a 
bottle to give him.' When found, make a note of." And there 
comes another, with his eye still fixed on the coast of Greenland 
—Captain Cuttle's oracular friend, the Admiral! There is a 
flutter along the hedge. Awast! It is the widow Mac Stinger. 
Let her pass, with all the little Mac Stingers, an endless proces- 



250 DICKENS 

sion of marital bliss. And the woman with her ? No, that is not 
Peggotty. We recognize the shawl. 

"And widge I was saying to Mrs. Harris" — 

Here she was interrupted by the tones of a flute. It was Mr. 
Mell. and he blew it "until I almost thought he would gradually 
blow his whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze away 
at the keys." 

And Sairy Gamp concluded that she had no preference as to 
her ale, excepting that she liked it "reg'lar," and "draw'd mild." 

See them as they come trooping along the lanes and bypaths 
of memory, a motly throng, making another pilgrimage to another 
Canterbury, with one greater than Chaucer for a guide — 

"Chambermaid in love with Boots, 
Toodles, Traddles, Tapley, Toots, 
Betsey Trotwood, Mr. Dick, 
Susan Nipper, Mistress Chick, 
Snevellicci, Lilyvick, 
Mantalini's predilections 
To transfer his warm affections. 
By poor Barnaby and Grip, 
Flora, Dora, Di and Gip, 
Perrybingle, Pinch and Pip — " 

But hark ! The sound of a coach ! Do you not hear the horn of 
the guard? 

"Yoho, among the gathering shades; making of no account 
the deep reflections of the trees, but scampering on through Hght 

and darkness all the same Yoho, beside the village green, 

where cricket-players linger yet, and every little indentation made 
in the grass by bat or wicket, ball or player's foot, sheds out its 
perfume on the night. ..... 

"Yoho, behind there, stop that bugle for a moment! Come 
creeping over to the front, along the coach-roof, guard, and, make 
one at this basket! .... Ah! It's long since this bottle of old 
-wine was brought into contact with the mellow breath of night, 



^ DICKENS 251 

you may depend, and rare good stuff it is to wet a bugler's whistle 
with. Only try it. Don't be afraid of turning up your finger. 
Bill, another pull ! Now take your breath, and try the bugle, BilL 
There's music! There's a tone! 'Over the hills and far away/ 
indeed, Yoho! The skittish mare is all alive tonight. Yohol 
Yoho! 

"See the bright moon; high up before we know it; making 
the earth reflect the objects on its breast like water .... 

''Clouds, too ! And a mist upon the hollow ! Not a dull fog 
that hides it, but a light, airy gauze-like mist, which in our eyes 
of modest admiration gives a new charm to the beauties it is 
spread before. . . . Yoho! Why, now we travel like the moon 
herself. Hiding this minute in a grove of trees, next minute in 
a patch of vapor, emerging now upon our broad, clear course^ 
withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey is a coun- 
terpart of hers. Yoho ! A match against the Moon !" 

And so we come, not to London with Tom Pinch; but the 
coach draws up to Dingley Dell, to discharge its cargo of immor- 
tals. See them alight, aided by old Tony Weller and Sam ! The 
great Sergeant Buzfuz is there, attended by Mr. Perker of Grey's 
Inn, and the learned Snubbin. Dr. Blimber, Dodson & Fogg, Mr. 
Solomon Pell (friend of the Lord Chancellor), Carker with his 
cat-like teeth, Wickfield and Uriah Heep, Jonas Chuzzlewit and 
Sykes, Bob Sawyer, Alfred Jingle and Squeers, and all the rest, 
come tumbling out like the contents of another Noah's Ark, and 
over all beams the serene countenance of the noble Pickwick him- 
self. They enter at old Wardle's cheery call, to find that Mr, 
Micawber has the punch all ready, and when they proceed to the 
hospitable table there sits Tiny Tim, and we hear again his bene- 
diction, — "God bless us, every one !" 

"Joe!" old Wardle calls; "damn that boy, he's gone to sleep 
again !" 

Peaceful be his slumbers, and may he waken with us all, in 
the land of the Master's dreams ! 

As Thackeray said, in his lecture on Charity and Humor, 
"One might go on, though the task would be endless and need- 
less, chronicling the names of kind folks with whom this kind 



252 DICKENS 

genius has made us familiar. Who does not love the Marchioness 
and Mr. Richard Swiveller ? Who does not sympathize, not only 
with Oliver Twist, but his admirable young friend the Artful 
Dodger? Who has not the inestimable advantage of possessing 
a Mrs. Nickleby in his own family? Who does not bless Sairey 
Gamp and wonder at Mrs. Harris? Who does not venerate the 
chief of that illustrious family who, being stricken by misfortune, 
wisely and greatly turned his attention to 'coals,' the accom- 
plished, the Epicurean, the dirty, the delightful Micawber ? 

*'l may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand and a thou- 
sand times, I delight and wonder at his genius ; I recognize in it — 
I speak with awe and reverence — a commission from that Divine 
Beneficence whose blessed task we know it will one day be to wipe 
every tear from every eye. Thankfully I take my share of the 
feast of love and kindness which this gentle and generous, and 
charitable soul has contributed to the happiness of the world. 
I take and enjoy my share, and say a benediction for the meal." 

The descriptive powers of Dickens are phenomenal. As a 
delineator of child life he has never had an equal, and the Dickens 
child-characters have won the heart of the world. His work in 
this regard is one of the peculiar glories of English literature. 
In this respect some great literatures are barren. Thus, as Taine 
remarks, *We have no children in French literature." And, in- 
deed, we can recall very few in either the Italian or the Spanish. 
In his portraiture of morbidity, of the insane and the feeble- 
minded, Taine thinks that he is equalled by no writer save Ernst 
Hoffman. But Balzac is the Continental writer with whom 
Dickens is most frequently if not most aptly compared. Tolstoy, 
the great Russian, declared that both Dickens and Balzac pro- 
duced some inartistic work, but he believed Dickens to be the 
greater author. 

But the most astounding powers of Dickens are called into 
play when he touches at will the chords of joy and sorrow, plung- 
ing from the height of gaiety to the depths of woe, and with 
equal facility leaping back again, often showering smiles athwart 
the tears like sunbeams through a mist, and blending pathos and 
humor in those fascinating mystic soul-tints which no other 



DICKENS 253 

artistes hand has ever drawn. 

E. P. Whipple, an American critic, observes: "It is difficult 
to say whether Dickens is more successful in humor or pathos. 
It is certain that his genius can as readily draw tears as provoke 
laughter. Sorrow, want, poverty, pain, death, the affections 
which cling to earth and those which rise above it he represents 
always with power, and often with marvelous skill. His style, in 
the serious moods of his mind, has a harmony of flow which often 
glides unconsciously into metrical arrangement, and is full of 
those woMs 

'Which fall as soft i: s snow on the sea, 
And melt in the heart as instantly.' 

One source of his pathos is the intense and purified conception he 
has of moral beauty — of that beauty which comes from a thought- 
ful brooding over the most solemn and affecting realities of life. 
The character of little Nell is an illustration. The simplicity of 
this creation, framed as it is, from the finest elements of human 
nature, and the unambitious mode of its development through the 
motley scenes of the Old Curios: ty Shop are calculated to make 
us overlook its rare merit as a work of high poetic genius. Amidst 
the wolfish malignity of Quilp, the suggared meanness of Brass, 
the roaring conviviality of Swiveller, amidst scenes of selfishness 
and shame, of passion and crime, this delicate creation moves 
along, unsullied, purified, pursuing the good in the simple earnest- 
ness of a pure heart, ghding to the tomb as to a sweet sleep, and 
leaving in every place that her presence beautifies the marks of 
celestial footprints. Sorrows such as hers, over which so fine a 
sentiment sheds its consecrations, have been well said to be ill- 
bartered for the garishness of joy; 'for they win us softly from 
life, and fit us to die smiling'." 

But, quite apart from the benefits of his refreshing humor 
and the uplifting power of his sweet and ennobling spirituaKty, 
Dickens accomplished much for the civic, industrial and social 
betterment of his generation and for posterity as well. He it 
was who first attacked imprisonment for debt. He was the first 
great prison reformer. In the matter of legal administration he 



254 DICKENS 

did more than any other man to accompHsh the substitution of 
reasonable codes for the interminable processes of chancery. He 
smote the "circumlocution office" and made official "red tape" 
forever unpopular. He launched his bolts against the miserable 
makeshift of a military commissariat, and from that day forth 
the lot of a British soldier has been easier and his burdens lighter. 
He hurled the shafts of his bitter, blighting irony and the ter- 
rible force of his heart-stirring pathos against the English fac- 
tory system, against industrial serfdom in the mines and else- 
where, and the lives of laboring men are better and upon higher 
standards because of his work. He struck at the debasing 
tyranny of the petty tyrants of the school room, and the lives 
of little children have been made happier and brighter as a result. 
But, above all else, there resounds throughout his life's work the 
pure note of democracy and the death-knell of snobbishness in all 
its forms, and always and everywhere the appeal for justice rings 
clear and true. 

Charles Dickens was born in 1812, and died in 1870. The 
hard and miserable life of his early youth is paraphrased to some 
extent, in his "David Copperfield," as we are informed by Foster 
in his life of Dickens. His youth and early manhood saw little 
of the brighter side of life. But, for all that, no writer in all the 
literature of the world has a better right to be called The Apostle 
of Good Cheer. ^^. 



X. 
TENNYSON. 

The volume of Tennyson's poems containing *'Oenone," "The 
Lotos Eaters," ''A Dream of Fair Women," and 'The Lady of 
Shalott," published in 1832, was brought to America by Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, who loaned it to many of his friends of Harvard 
College. James Russell Lowell was one of those who thus re- 
ceived his first knowledge of Tennyson from the hand of Emer- 
son. The British poet had pubhshed his first poems in 1830. 

In 1842 appeared the volume containing, "Morte d' Arthur," 
"Ulysses," and "Locksley Hall." This volume secured his fame. 
In 1847 he pubhshed "The Princess," and in 1850 "In Memoriam." 
Between 1850 and 1875, at intervals of about five years, he pub- 
lished his "Maud," "Idylls of the King," (the first four), "Enoch 
Arden," and "The Holy Grail," followed by other "Idylls." These 
were his major works. But he continued writing until the end 
of his long life. His "Crossing the Bar" was written when he w^as 
eighty-one years of age. It is one of the best known of his poems, 
and it is so beautiful, so sweet, and so characteristic of the poet 
in his best mood, that it is here given in full : 

Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me ! 
And may there be no mioaning of the bar. 

When I put out to sea ; 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 

Too full of sound and foam, 
When that which drew from out the boundless deep 

Turns again home. 

Twilight and evening bell, 
And after that the dark ! 

255 



256 TENNYSON 

And may there be no sadness of farewell 
When I embark ; 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place, 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crossed the bar. 

When Longfellow, the American poet, in 1859, read the first 
four "Idylls," he wrote to a friend: " 'The Idylls' are a great suc- 
cess. Rich tapestries, wrought as only Tennyson could have done 
them, and worthy to hang beside 'The Faerie Queen.' I believe 
there is no discordant voice on this side the water." Longfellow 
judged correctly. Tennyson's i-esemblance to Spenser has been 
remarked by others also. Taine, the Frenchman, noticed it. But 
he wrote in styles as varied as his subjects. As Taine remarks 
(Enghsh Lit., Vol. 4, p. 661) : "He wrote in every accent, and 
delighted in entering into the feelings of all ages. He wrote of 
St. Agnes, St. Simon Stylites, Ulysses, Oenone, Sir Galahad, Lady 
Clare, Fatima, the Sleeping Beauty. He imitated alternately 
Homer and Chaucer, Theocritus and Spenser, the old English 
poets and the old Arabian poets. .... He was like those mu- 
sicians v/ho use their bow in the service of all masters." 

The exquisitely modulated harmony of his numbers and the 
smooth and equable movement of his verse are outstanding fea- 
tures of his metrical compositions. These capital traits are 
strikingly illustrated in the following verses from "The Princess" : 

The splendor falls on castle walls, 

And snowy summits old in story ; 
The long light shakes across the lakes. 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying ; 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

hark, hear! how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going! 



TENNYSON 257 

sweet and far from cliff and scar 

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
Blow, let us hear the purple gems replying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river; 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
And grow forever and forever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying dying. 

Such artistry cannot be too highly praised. Another song from 
"The Princess" has become the best known lullaby in the English 
tongue : 

Sweet and low, sweet and low. 

Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow. 

Wind of the western sea ! 
Over the rolling waters go, 
Come from the dying moon, and blow. 

Blow him again to me; 
While my little one while my pretty one sleeps. 

We beheve that it is in just such rare and dainty bits that 
Tennyson excels all the poets of his time. They are like miniature 
paintings by a master hand. The more they are studied the more 
they disclose, behind their vermeil veil of modesty, their great 
creator's power. They are like shrinking flowers whose beauty 
is first made known by the fragrance they exhale. The following 
is an unsurpassed example of Tennyson in his pecuHar and all but 
exclusive field : 

Break, break, break 

On thy cold gray stones, Sea ! 



258 TENNYSON 

And I would that my tongue could utter 
The thoughts that arise in me. 

well for the fisherman's boy, 

That he shouts with his sister at play ! 

well for the sailor lad, 

That he sings in his boat on the bay I 

And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill ; 
But for the touch of a vanished hand 

And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

Break, break, break 

At the foot of thy crags, Sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 

In Tennyson there is none of the wild, tempestuous force of Byron. 
He approximates the technical correctness of Pope, and the ten- 
der elegance of Wordsworth and Keats, whose intellectual heir 
he undoubtedly was. But, as remarked above, his style is not 
always the same. Sometimes he breaks forth in a far richer 
strain and his verses, flashing w^ith color, gleam like a jewelled 
brocade zoned with silken gold, or a morning sky shot o'er with 
silver stars, empurpled by the streaks of dawn. Contemporary 
critics were a unit in his praise. Mr. McCarthy, in his "History 
of Our Own Times" declares: "Mr. Tennyson is beyond doubt 
the most complete of the poets of Queen Victoria's time. No one 
else has the same combination of melody, beauty and description, 
culture and intellectual power. He has sv/eetness and strength 
in exquisite combination." In Stedman's Victorian Poets, it is 
said that he is "Certainly to be regarded in time to come as, all 
in all, the fullest representative of the refined, speculative and 

complex Victorian age In technical excellence, as an artist 

in verse, Tennyson is the greatest of modern poets." He has 
usually been known as a poet of the intellect, rather than for his 



TENNYSON 259 

mastery of the passions. Whipple, the American critic, in his 
Essays and Reviews, says : "His poetry is marked by intellectual 
intensity as distinguished from intensity of feeling." Bayard 
Taylor was undoubtedly correct in his judgment that "Tennyson's 
place in the literature of the English language, whatever may be 
his relation to the acknowledged masters of song, is sure to be 
high and permanent." 

The life of Tennyson was as uneventful as that of Words- 
worth. He was born in 1809 and died in 1892. He was the third 
child in a family of twelve. His father was a clergyman in Lin- 
colnshire, and a man of unusual intelligence. The poet was en- 
tered as a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he at- 
tained, even in his youth, some eminence as a poet. But he left 
the university in 1831 without having taken a degree, and thence- 
forth devoted the remainder of his life to poetry. For over sixty 
years he toiled away at his art, and lived the life of a literary 
recluse. His first productions were rather inhospitably received 
by the critics. Literary history affords no more conspicuous ex- 
ample of excellence attained through great labor, and of persist- 
ent effort, rightly directed, culminating in the highest triumphs 
of genius. 

As late as 1850 he was still in a state of relative obscurity. 
In that year died Wordsworth, the poet laureate. The honor was 
at once offered to Samuel Rogers, author of "The Pleasures of 
Memory," then in his eighty-ninth year. The venerable poet de- 
cHned the honor, because of his age, but ventured to suggest 
Alfred Tennyson for the post. Lord Palmerston, the British 
premier, replied : "We know nothing of this gentleman." Twenty 
years after the publication of his first volume, eighteen years 
after the pubhcation of his "Morte d'Arthur," "Ulysses," and 
"Locksley Hall," and three year? after publishing "The Princess," 
and in the very year of his publication of "In Memoriam," the 
British government had never heard of Alfred Tennyson, the 
greatest of the "Victorians !" But he was nevertheless appointed, 
upon the suggestion of Rogers. Thirty-four years later, in 1884, 
he accepted a peerage and thus became the first member of the 
English House of Lords selected alone because of his literary 



260 TENNYSON 

distinction. He had previously declined the honor twice; for 
Tennyson believed, and in the depths of his democratic heart he 
knew, the truth of these lines, which he had written in 1832 : 

"However it be, it seems to me, 

Tis only noble to be good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets 

And simple faith than Norman blood." 

Tennyson produced some of his best work in the treatment 
of topics of current interest. Among these poems may be men- 
tioned his *'Ode on the Duke of Wellington," and his "Charge 
of the Light Brigade." During the recent international crisis 
these prophetic lines from "Locksley Hall," published in 1842, 
were recalled throughout the world : 

For I dipped into the future as far as human eye could see, 

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be ; 

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; 

Heard the Heavens filled with shouting, and there rained a 
ghastly dew 

From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; 

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing 
warm. 

With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder- 
storm ; 

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were 
furled 

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 

There the common-sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law. 

And so Alfred Tennyson moved through Hfe, reticent, retir- 
ing, savoring more of the cloister than of the court, hermit-like, 



TENNYSON 261 

uttering his soul-cries and his prophecies; like the voices of 
Dodona, always heard, but by the public never seen. As W. 
Howitt wrote, so long ago : "You may hear the voice, but where 
is the man? He is wandering in some dreamland beneath the 
shade of old and charmed forests, by far-off shores, where 

*A11 night 
The plunging seas draw backward from the land 
Their moon-led waters white ;' 

by the old mill-dam thinking of the merry miller and his pretty 
daughter ; or is wandering over the open wolds, where 

'Norland whirlwinds blow/ 

From all places — from the silent corridor of an ancient con- 
vent ; from some shrine where a devoted knight recites his vows ; 
from the drear monotony of the moated grange, or the ferny 
forest, beneath the talking oak, — comes the voice of Tennyson, 
rich, dreamy, passionate, yet not impatient ; musical with the airs 
of chivalrous ages, yet mingling in his songs the theme and 
spirit of those that are yet to come.'^ 



INDEX. 



TO MY BOOKS. 

As one who, destined from his friends to part, 
Regrets his loss, but hopes again er 'while 
To share their converse and enjoy their smile, 

And tempers, as he may, affliction's dart. 

Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art, 

Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile 
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil, 

I now resign you, nor with fainting heart. 

For pass a few short years, or days, or hours, 

And happier seasons may their dawn unfold, 
And all your sacred fellowship restore; 

When freed from earth, unlimited its powers. 

Mind shall with mind direct communion hold, 

And kindred spirits meet to part no more. 

— Roscoe. 



INDEX. 



(References are to pages.) 



Adams, Charles Francis, on Mon- 
taigne and Cicero, 137. 

Adamson, Robert, on Kant, 185. 

"Adamiis Exsul," The, by Grotius, 
223. 

ADDISON, Joseph, on Homer, 41; 
on Virgil, 7; Wieland compared 
with, 195, 196; translation of 
Ovid, 13; on Milton, 222; sketch 
of, 224-227; characterization of, 
225; tribute by Macaulay, 226; 
by Johnson, 226; by Thackeray, 
227; compared with Montaigne, 
225. 

AESCHYLUS, sketch of, 29-31; 
at battle of Marathon, 29; hon- 
ored by King Hiero, 29; critical 
opinions by Mark Pattison and 
C. H. Moore, 30; conclusion of 
Macaulay, 31; imitated by Schil- 
ler, 178. ' 

Alighieri (See Dante). 

ALFIERI, sketch of, 97-100; ap- 
praised by Matthew Arnold, 
Gioberti and Mariotti, 97; his 
dedication to George Washing- 
ton, 98; compared with Cowper, 
100; Macaulay on, 100; inspired 
by Plutarch, 46; his hatred of 
France, 98. 

Amadis de Gaula, The, 122, 123. 

Andreini, his relation to Milton, 
223. 

Antonio, Nicolas, his eulogy of the 
Argensolas, 119. 

ANACREON, sketch of, 56-59; 
Thomas Moore's estimate of, 
56; Lessing's imitations of, 180; 
favorite of Hipparchus and Po- 
lycrates, 56; imitations by Vil- 
legas, 120; characterization of, 
59. 



ARGENSOLAS, The, sketch of, 
118-119; praised by Cervantes, 
118; by Lope de Vega, 119; esti- 
mate by Ticknor, 118; by Dieze, 
119; eulogized by Nicolas An- 
tonio, 119. 

ARIOSTO, sketch of, 80-82; his 
Orlando Furioso, 80, 81; Ber- 
nardo Tasso on, 80; Galileo on, 
81; Hallam on, 81; compared 
with Homer, Virgil, Dante, Tas- 
so and Ovid, 81; his satires, 81; 
views of Tiraboschi, 81; com- 
pared with Spenser, 216; with 
Scott, 82; his debt to Boiardo, 
82; berated by Pellegrini and 
Castelvetro, 84; Rose's trans- 
lation, 82. 

Aristophanes, Moliere compared 
with, 157; attacked Euripides, 
35; Rabelais compared with, 
140. 

ARISTOTLE, sketch of, 32-34; 
friend of Philip of Macedon, and 
tutor of Alexander, 32, 33; his 
Peripatetic school, 33; opinion 
of Hegel, 33; vast scholarship, 
33; his view of education, 34; 
praised Euripides, 35. 

Arnold, Matthew, on Alfieri, 97; 
on Homer, 41; on Herder and 
Lessing, 199; on Heine, 202; on 
Spenser, 217; on Byron, 234; 
on Wordsworth, 244. 

Art, definitions of, 86. 

Aurelius (See Marcus Aurelius). 

B. 

Bacon, Francis, on history, 2; 

his erroneous quotation of 

Plutarch, 47. 
Balzac, Honore de, on Montaigne, 

136-7; compared with Dickens, 



(iii) 



INDEX. 



252; Victor Hugo's oration on, 
167. 

Bastile, The, Voltaire's imprison- 
ment in, 160. 

Barros, Joan de, his praise of 
Vicente, 128. 

Berni, Franceso, imitated by- 
Byron, in Beppo, 83. 

Blair, Dr. Hugh, tribute to Cor- 
neille, 151; on Moliere, 157; opin- 
ion of Lucan, 10; on Shakes- 
peare, 213. 

BOCCACCIO, sketch of, 72-74; 
influence on French and English 
letters, 73; Decameron, 73; lec- 
tures on Dante, 73; F. M. War- 
ren on, 73; contrasted with 
Petrarch, 74; La Fontaine com- 
pared with, 158. 

Bodmer, his discovery of Klop- 
stock, 190; Wieland's debt to, 
194. 

BOIARDO, sketch of, 83-85; his 
Orlando Inammorata, 83; Hal- 
lam's view, 83; compared with 
Ariosto, 83; burlesqued by Berni, 
83; version by Domenichi, 83; 
Milton's familiarity with, 84; 
shorter poems, 84, 85. 

Boileau, onCorneille, 150; friend of 
Racine, 152; compared with 
Pope, 229. 

Bolingbroke, Lord, opinion of Livy, 
1. 

Bossuet, his controversy with Fen- 
elon, 144. 

Bounaparte, Napoleon, his admira- 
tion of Goethe, 171. 

Bouterwek, on Lope de Vega, 103; 
on Cervantes, 108; on Camoens, 
117; on Villegas, 121; on the 
Argensolas, 119. 

Boyesen, Prof., estimate of Goethe, 
173; on the friendship of Goethe 
and Schiller, 171. 

British authors, 209-261. 

Brutus, Horace a follower of, 4. 



Buonarroti, Michelangelo (See 
Michelangelo). 

Burke, Edmund, his prose com- 
pared with Milton's, 220. 

BYRON, Lord, his imitation of 
Berni, 83; his reference to 
Petrarch, 70; to Dante, 65; his 
praise of Pope, 229, 238; Macau- 
lay's criticism, 234; Matthew Ar- 
nold, Goethe and Taine on, 234; 
Castelar on, 234; Dr. Elze's esti- 
mate of, 234, 235; Mazzini on, 
235; his world-wide influence, 
236; compared with Milton, 
Homer and the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures, 237; Sir Walter Scott's 
tribute, 238; fondness for Dante 
and Tasso, 234; sketch of, 233- 
238. 

C. 

Caesar, Augustus, friend of Livy, 1 ; 
his exile of Ovid, 12; friendship 
for Horace and Virgil, 4, 8. 

CALDERON, sketch of, 131-133; 
Corneille's debt to, 131; trans- 
lated by Schlegel, 132 ; compared 
with Lope de Vega, 131; imi- 
tated by Dryden, 132. 

CAMOENS, sketch of, 112-114; 
his Lusiad, 112; opinion of Hal- 
lam, 112; Southey on, 112; his 
miscellaneous works, 112, 113; 
Bouterwek on, 114; his imita- 
tions of Plautus, 113. 

Campbell, Thomas, on Spenser, 
217. 

Capital punishment, Hugo on, 167. 

Corporali, Cesare, his satire imi- 
tated by Cervantes, 108. 

Carey, translation of Dante, 64. 

Carlyle, Thomas, estimate of 
Goethe, 169; translationof 
Goethe, 172; on Kant, 185; 
translation of Richter, 187; opin- 
ion of Richter, 187, 188; on 
Shakespeare, 213. 

Castelar, on Lord Byron, 234. 



INDEX. 



CASTRO, Gullen de, sketch of, 
125-127; imitated by Calderon, 
125; his dramatization of The 
Cid, 125; adapted by Corneille, 
125; story of The Cid, 126; 
critique by Ticknor, 127. 

CERVANTES, sketch of, 107- 
111; his Galatea, 107; his Nu- 
mancia, 108; praised by Schlegel, 
Shelly, Bouterwek and Goethe, 
108; his Journey to Parnassus, 
108; Don Quixote, 108, 109; 
Heine and Hallam on, 109; 
Sismondi, Bouterwek and Lan- 
dor on, 110; Ticknor quoted, 
110; compared with Rabelais, 
111, 142; various Cervantes edi- 
tions, 111; his opinion of the 
Amadis de Gaula, 123; Scott's 
indebtedness to, 242. 

Champmele, Mme. de, Racine's 
love for, 152. 

Chaucer, his familiarity with Ovid, 
14; personally acquainted with 
Petrarch, 69. 

Chesterfield, tribute to Montes- 
quieu, 147, 148. 

Choate, Rufus, his reference to 
Machiavelli, 137. 

Church, Dean, on Dante, 67; on 
Spenser, 216. 

Cicero, compared with Montaigne, 
137. 

Cid, The, 125, 127. 

Coleridge, S. T., praises Carey's 
Dante, 64; on Shakespeare, 213; 
relations with Wordsworth, 243. 

CORNEILLE, sketch of, 149-151; 
his debt to Castro, 125; to 
Calderon, 132; Dowden's opinion 
of, 149; La Harpe, Fontenelle, 
Scudery and Voltaire on, 149; 
Boileau on, 150; Moliere's col- 
laboration with, 150; eulogized 
by Racine, 150; praised by St. 
Evremont, 150; his debt to 
Lucan, 150; Dr. Blair's tribute. 



151; his advice to Racine, 152; 

opposed by Richelieu, 149. 
Cowley, his debt to Spenser, 216. 
Cowper, compared with Alfieri, 

100. 
Criticism, Goethe on, 173; German, 

Lessing the father of, 180; 

Kames' Elements of, cited; 

Quintilian, father of ancient, 26. 



D. 



DANTE, sketch of, 63-67; political 
career, 63; the Divine Comedy, 
64; Carey's translation, 64; 
Byron's reference to, 65; char- 
acterization of, 65; Dr. Garnett 
quoted, 66; opinions of Macaulay 
and Dean Church, 67; Boccac- 
cio's lectures on, 75; Milton 
compared with, 222; Byron's 
fondness for, 234. 

DeQuincey, on Kant, 186; his 
praise of Pope, 229; on Words- 
worth, 244; Life of Richter, 187. 

DeStael, Madame, her view of 
Goethe, 169; visited Schiller, 
178; her opinion of Kant, 183. 

DICKENS, Charles, sketch of, 
248-254; his portraiture of char- 
acters, 248; Thackeray on, 251; 
compared with Balzac and Ernst 
Hoffman, 252; Tolstoy's view, 
252; tribute of E. P. Whipple, 
253; his ci\dc reforms, 253, 254. 

Dieze, on the Argensolas, 119; on 
Villegas, 120. 

Domenichi, Lodovico, his version 
of Boiardo, 83. 

Dowden, Edward, his praise of 
Corneille, 149. 

Drama, the modern, first produced 
by Vicente, 128. 

Dryden, translation of Ovid, 13; 
copied Plautus, 18; reference to 
Milton, 216; to Shakespeare, 211. 

Duffand, Madame du, her tribute 
to Voltaire, 161. 



VI 



INDEX. 



E. 

Education, Plutarch's views on, 
48. 

Einstein, his theory of relativity 
suggested by Kant, 184. 

Elze, Karl, his estimate of Byron, 
234, 235. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, on Mon- 
taigne, 136; on Shakespeare, 212; 
introduced Tennyson to Amer- 
ica, 255. 

English authors, 209-261. 

Epicurus, friend of Menander, 49. 

Essay, the modern, fathered by 
Montaigne, 135. 

EURIPIDES, sketch of, 35-37; 
compared with Sophocles, 35; 
pupil of Anaxagoras, 35; at- 
tacked by Aristophanes and ap- 
proved by Aristotle, 35; anec- 
dote by Plutarch, 35, 36; in- 
fluence on modern drama, 36; 
Racine's debt to, 152, 153; imi- 
tated by Milton, 223. 

F. 

Faguet, tribute to Corneille, 151. 

Farmer poet, Virgil the, 7. 

Faust, Goethe's, the history of, 
172. 

FENELON, sketch of, 143-145; 
his controversy with Bossuet, 
144; on education, 144; Hallam's 
opinion, 144; compared with 
Froebel, Pestalozzi and Locke, 
145; his Telemachus, 145; Vol- 
taire on, 145; eulogized by La 
Fontaine, 158; Wieland com- 
pared with, 196; his love of 
books, 144; his imitation of Fon- 
tenelle, 145; La Harpe's view of, 
145; his debt to Lucian, 145. 

Fielding, Henry, Lady Montague's 
observation on, 139; compared 
with Shakespeare, 213. 

Fontenelle, his tribute to Corneille, 
149; imitated by Fenelon, 145. 



Francis, Sir Philip, view of Horace, 

4. 
Free speech, Lessing's advocacy of, 

181; Milton's struggle for, 221. 
French authors, 135-168. 
Frere, J. Hookman, translation of 

The Cid, 127. 
Friendship, Horace on, 6. 



Galileo, on Ariosto, 81; visited by 
Milton, 219. 

Garnett, Dr. Richard, on Dante, 
66. 

Gautier, his appraisal of Heine, 
203. 

German authors, 169-208. 

Gioberti, on Alfieri, 97. 

GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von, 
his praise of Cervantes, 108; 
sketch of, 169-174; tribute by 
Carlyle, 169; compared with 
Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, 
169; opinions of Taine and Ma- 
dame de Stael, 169; his meeting 
with Herder, 170; translated by 
Scott, 170; tribute by Napoleon, 
171; his golden jubilee, 171; 
friendship with Schiller, 171; 
translated by Carlyle, 172; his 
Faust, 172; tributes by Bayard 
Taylor and George Henry Lewes, 
172; by Prof. Boyesen, 173; by 
Taine, 173; on criticism, 173; 
his view of war, 173; his praise of 
Richter, 187; influenced by Klop- 
stock, 192; friendship for Herder, 
199; visited by Heine, 202; his 
praise of Milton, 223; on Byron, 
234; on Lessing, 181; compared 
with Weber, 206. 

Golden mean, Horace on, 5. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, his influence on 
Goethe, 170; visited Voltaire, 
161. 

Gray, Thomas, tribute to Milton, 
223; compared with Horace, 5; 
opinion of Pope's Homer, 230. 



INDEX. 



Vll 



Greek authors, 29-62. 

Grotius, Hugo, compared with 

Machiavelli, 91, 92; his relation 

to Milton, 223. 
Guarini, 60, 94. 

H. 

Hallam, Henry, on Ariosto, 81; 
on Machiavelli, 90; on Petrarch, 
69; on Don Quixote, 109; on 
Camoens, 112; pn Montaigne, 
136; on Rabelais, 140; on Ra- 
cine, 153; on Boiardo, 83; on 
Fenelon, 144; on Shakespeare, 
213; on Spenser, 216; on Milton, 
222. 

Hamilton, Alexander, his quota- 
tion of Montesquieu, 147. 

Hegel, his view of Aristotle, 33. 

HEINE, sketch of, 200-203; trans- 
lated by Scott, 200; his compari- 
son with Don Quixote, 201; his 
opinion of America, 202; Mat- 
thew Arnold on, 202; his visit 
with Goethe, 202; Gau tier's ap- 
praisal of, 203; intellectually 
the child of Byron, 235. 

Henry, Patrick, Byron's praise of, 
236. 

HERDER, J. G., sketch of, 197- 
199; as a bibliophile, 197; friend- 
ship with Goethe, 197; his trans- 
lations, 198; Matthew Arnold 
on, 199; influence on his con- 
temporaries, 198. 

Hiero, King, patron of Theo- 
critus, 62; of Pindar, 53; of 
Aeschylus, 29. 

HOMER, sketch of, 38-41; German 
critics of, 38; modern transla- 
tions, 38; characterization of, by 
Prof. Blair, 38, 39; Pope's trans- 
lation, 39, 230; opinions of 
Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold and 
Joseph Addison, 41; compared 
with Virgil, Tasso and Milton, 
41; Pope's comparison of with 
Virgil, 230. 



HORACE, sketch of, 4-6; be- 
friended by Virgil, 4; by Augus- 
tus, 4; opinion of Philip Fran- 
cis, 4; his love for Virgil and 
Maecenas, 6; Montaigne com- 
pared with, 136; Wieland com- 
pared with, 196; compared with 
Alcaeus, Sappho and Anacreon, 
4; his "golden mean," 5; Pope 
compared with, 229. 

Howitt, W., on Tennyson, 261. 

Holland, Lord, on Lope de Vega, 
103. 

HUGO, Victor, 164-168; tribute by 
Tennyson, 165; by Lanson, 166; 
contrasted with Diderot and 
Renan, 166; on capital punish- 
ment, 167; orations on Balzac 
and Voltaire, 167; his political 
triumph, 166; C. C. Stark- 
weather on, 166; his crayon of 
John Brown, 167. 

Hume, David, his influence on 
Kant; view of Milton, 222. 

I. 

"Imitation of Christ," rendered 
into verse by Corneille, 150. 

Irish, the, English tyranny over, 
215, 216. 

Italian authors, 63-100. 

J. 

Johnson, Samuel, on Milton, 222; 

on Addison, 226; on Pope, 229. 
Jowett, Prof., on Plato, 45. 
Juvenal, imitated by Quevedo, 

116. 

K. 

KANT, sketch of, 183-186; 
Madame de Stael's opinion of, 
183; George Henry Lewes on, 
183; compared with Plato, 184; 
his "Critique," 184; suggestion 
of Einstein's theory of relativity, 
184; influenced by Hume, 184; 



viu 



INDEX. 



Robert Adamson on, 185; Car- 
lyle on, 185; Schlegel on, 185; 
DeQuincey quoted, 186; char- 
acterization by Albert Schweg- 
ler, 186; anticipated nebular 
hypothesis of LaPlace, 184. 

Karnes, Lord, his "Elements of 
Criticism" cited, 145. 

Keats, John, Tennyson compared 
with, 258; tribute to Spenser, 
218. 

Keble, his characterization of 
Wordsworth, 247. 

KLOPSTOCK, sketch of, 190-193; 
his Miltonic character noted by 
Bodmer, 190; Roscoe's transla- 
tion of his "Messiah," 190; in- 
fluence on Goethe, 192; his place 
in German literature, 192, 193. 



LA FONTAINE, sketch of, 158- 
159; eulogized by Fenelon, 158; 
compared with Boccaccio, 158; 
rivals Phaedrus, 158. 

LaHarpe, eulogy of Racine, 154; 
on Corneille, 149; preferred Fen- 
elon to Fontenelle, 145. 

Lamartine, opinion of Tasso, 77. 

Landor, W. S., on Cervantes, 110; 
on Shakespeare, 212. 

Laplace, his nebular hypothesis an- 
ticipated by Kant, 184. 

Lavatar, definition of art, 86. 

Law, Hooker's definition of, 170. 

L'Estrange, translation of Quevedo, 
116. 

LESSING, sketch of, 180-182; his 
imitations of Anacreon, 180; his 
work on criticism, 180, 181; 
Macaulay on, 181; Goethe's 
view, 181; his fidelity to the 
Greek standards, 182; Matthew 
Arnold on, 199; prepared way 
for Fichte and Kant, 181; ad- 
vocacy of free speech, 181; Mil- 
ton compared with, 221; con- 



troversy with Pope, 230; con- 
trasted with Addison, 225. 

Lewes, George Henry, tribute to 
Goethe, 172; on Kant, 183; trib- 
ute to Socrates, 42. 

Lieber, Francis, his view of 
Montesquieu, 147; contrasted 
with Machiavelli, 91. 

LIVY, sketch of, 1-3; friend of 
Augustus, 1; his History of 
Rome, 1; Bolingbroke's opinion 
of, 1, 2; his epitaph, 1; his view 
of history, 2. 

Longfellow, Henry W., his praise 
of Tennyson, 256. 

LOPE DE VEGA, sketch of, 101- 
106; his Italian imitations, 101; 
his precocious scholarship, 101; 
his lyrics, 102; his plays, 103; 
Bouterwek and Lord Holland 
on, 103; Cervantes on, 104; 
Ticknor on, 104; discards Ter- 
ence and Plautus, 104; imitated 
by Moliere, 105; compared with 
Shakespeare, 209. 

Lowell, James Russell, on Theo- 
critus, 62. 

LUC AN, sketch of, 10-11; his 
Pharsalia, 11; was Corneille' s 
model, 150; Nero's hatred of, 10. 

Lucian, followed by Quevedo, Fon- 
tenelle and Fenelon, 145. 

LUCRETIUS, sketch of, 15-17; 
his De Rerum Natura, 15; com- 
pared with Milton, 16; poem on, 
by Tennyson, 15. 

M. 

Macaulay, on Dante, 67; on 
Machiavelli, 92; on Aeschylus, 
31; on Alfieri and Cowper, 100; 
on Don Quixote, 109; on Vol- 
taire, 162; on Lessing, 181; on 
Shakespeare, 213; on Spenser, 
218; on Milton, 220; on Addison, 
226; on Byron, 234. 

MACHIAVELLI, sketch of, 90- 
93; Taine on, 90; The Prince, 90, 



INDEX. 



91; Hallam on, 90; contrasted 
with Francis Lieber, 91; mis- 
construed by Andrew Dickson 
White, 91; contrasted with Gro- 
tius, 91, 92; appraised by Rufus 
Choate, 92; Shakespeare's mis- 
conception of, 92; Macaulay on, 
92; founded school of philosophi- 
cal polities, 93. 

Madison, James, his opinion of 
Montesquieu, 147. 

Maecenas, friendship for Horace, 
4; friend of Virgil, 7; "the Ger- 
man Maecenas," 176. 

Maintenon, Madame de, her in- 
fluence with Racine, 153. 

Mansoni, Allesandro, his I 
Promessa Sposi, 74. 

MARCUS AURELIUS, sketch of, 
2-22; opinion of John Stuart 
Mill, 21; his Meditations, 21, 22. 

Martial, his opinion of Quintilian, 
26. 

Marlowe, Christopher, his trans- 
lation of 0\-id, 13. 

Matthews, Brander, on Moliere, 
156. 

Mazzini, tribute to Lord Byron, 
235. 

McCarthy, Justin, on Tennyson, 
258. 

MENANDER, sketch of, 49-52; 
friend of Epicurus, 49; imitated 
by Plautus and Terence, 49; 
German translations of, 49; Ad- 
dison compared with, 226. 

METASTASIO, sketch of, 94-96. 

MICHELANGELO, sketch of, 86- 
89; Symonds' characterization 
of, 86; sonnet on Dante, 87; Sid- 
ney Colvin quoted, 88; sonnet to 
Pistoja, 89; love for Vittoria 
Colonna, 89; painting by 
Schneider, 89; compared with 
Petrarch, 89. 

Mill, John Stuart, on Marcus Aure- 
lius, 21; his appreciation of 
Wordsworth, 246. 



I MILTON, John, compared with 
I Klopstock, 190; reference to 

Boiardo, 84; indebtedness to 
Spenser, 216; sketch of, 219, 223; 
I his great learning, 219; his 

polemics, 220; Macaulay and 
Mark Pattison on, 220; com- 
pared with Lessing, 221; Hallam 
on, 222; compared with Dante, 
222; Addison, Johnson and 
Hume on, 222; relation to Gro- 
tius, Vondel and Andreini, 223; 
imitated Sophocles and Euripi- 
des, 223; Goethe's tribute, 223; 
Byron compared with, 237. 

MOLIERE, sketch of, 155-157; 
borrows from Lope de Vega, 105; 
Brander Matthews on, 156; com- 
pared with Plautus, Terence and 
Aristophanes, 157; Blair on, 157; 
his appreciation of La Fontaine, 
158; copied Plautus, 18; com- 
pared with Shakespeare, 210. 

Montalvan, on Lope de Vega, 101, 
106. 

MONTALVO, sketch of, 122-124; 
his Amadis of Gaul, 122; praised 
by Tasso, 123; Italian versions 
of, 122, 123. 

MONTESQUIEU, sketch of, 146- 
148; Voltaire's eulogy of, 146; his 
popularity in America, 146, 147; 
his debt to Tacitus, 147; Madi- 
son's opinion of, 147; Francis 
Lieber on, 147; Chesterfield's 
tribute to, 147, 148. 

MONTAIGNE, sketch of, 135- 
138; Hallam, Emerson and 
Sainte-Beuve on, 136; character- 
ization of, 137; Shakespeare's 
debt to, 138; Pasquier on, 138; 
compared with Wieland, 196. 

N. 

Napoleon, tribute to Goethe, 171. 
Numancia, The, of Cervantes, 108. 



INDEX. 



O. 

OVID, sketch of, 12-14; banished 
by Augustus, 12; his Ars Ama- 
toria, and Epistolae Ex Ponto, 
12; his moral instability, 12, 13; 
his Medea and Metamorphoses, 
13 ; translation by Dry den, Mar- 
lowe and Addison, 13; Shakes- 
peare's familiarity with, 13; 
Chaucer's knowledge of, 14. 

P. 

Palmerston, Lord, his appointment 
of Tennyson as laureate, 259. 

Pastoral poetry, origin and growth 
of, 60, 61. 

Pasquier, Etienne, on Montaigne, 
138. 

Pattison, Mark, on Milton, 220; 
on Aeschylus, 3''0. 

PETRARCH, sketch of, 68-71; 
Latin poems of, 68; father of the 
Renaissance, 68; his travels, 69; 
early English views of, 69; Hal- 
lam's estimate, 69; Laura, 69; 
receives laurel crown, 69; com- 
pared with Montaigne, 135; imi- 
tated by Villegas, 121. 

PLUTARCH, sketch of, 46-48; 
his Lives, 46, 47; praised by 
Alfieri, Napoleon, Petrarch, 
Montaigne, St. Evremont and 
Montesquieii, 46; North's trans- 
lation, 47; Shakespeare's debt to, 
47; Bacon's erroneous quotation, 
47; his views on education and 
statesmanship; his anecdote of 
Euripides, 35; of Pindar, 53. 

PINDAR, sketch of, 53-55; anec- 
dote by Plutarch, 53; praised by 
Cicero and Pausanias, 53; opin- 
ion of Plato, 53; his odes, 54, 
55; modern translations, 55; 
compared with Horace, 4. 

PLATO, sketch of, 42-45; pupil of 
Socrates and teacher of Aris- 
totle, 42; companion of Xeno- 



phon, 42; his metaphysics, 43, 
44; influence upon ancient cul- 
ture, 44; his Republic, 45; Kant 
compared with, 184; his travels, 
43; his experience with Diony- 
sius, 43; his debt to Lycurgus, 
45; Prof. Jowett on, 45. 

PLAUTUS, sketch of, 18-19; in- 
fluence on English, German and 
French literature, 18; imitated 
Menander, 49. 

Poe, Edgar Allen, "The Poetic 
Principle," 86. 

Political philosophy (see Mon- 
tesquieu and Machiavelli.) 

POPE, Alexander, on Spenser, 217; 
sketch of, 228-232; Thackeray's 
estimate of, 228; Taine on, 228, 
229; Johnson's praise of, 229; 
Byron's admiration of, 229, 238; 
compared witn Boileau and with 
Sappho, 229; Leshe Stephen's 
criticism, 230; translation of 
Homer, 230; friendship with 
Swift, and satire on Addison, 
230, 231; controversies with Vol- 
taire, Lessing and Crousaz, 230; 
his comparison of Virgil and 
Homer, 231. 

Q. 

QUINTILIAN, sketch of, 26-28; 
Martial's opinion of, 26; his De 
Institutiones Oratoris, 26; be- 
friended by Domitian, 26. 

QUEVEDO, sketch of, 115-117; 
his Paul the Sharper, and Vis- 
ions, 116; translated by L'Es- 
trange, 116; imitations of Ju- 
venal and Persius, 116. 

R. 

RABELAIS, sketch of, 139-142; 
estimate of, 139; Wells on, 139, 
140; compared with Fielding, 
139; resemblance to Lucan and 



INDEX. 



Aristophanes, 140; Taine and 
Voltaire on, 141; Sainte-Beuve 
on, 141, 142; compared with 
Cervantes, 142; with Swift, 140; 
his last words, 142. 

RACINE, eulogized by Corneille, 
150; sketch of, 152-154; his 
friendship with Boileau, Moliere 
and Furetiere, 152; Hallam on, 
153; influenced by Madame de 
Maintenon, 153; his debt to 
Euripides, 153; compared with 
Virgil, 154. 

Religious hypocrisy, Moliere on, 
lob. 

Republic, Roman, its restoration 
favored by Agrippa, 8; Plato, 
Republic, 45. 

Revolution, French, Voltaire's re- 
lation to, 163. 

Richelieu, his opposition to Cor- 
neille, 149. 

RICHTER, Jean Paul, sketch of, 
187-189; his "Levana" praised 
by Goethe, 187; translated by 
Carlyle, 187; Carlyle's estimate 
of, 187, 188; compared with 
Carlyle, 189; DeQuincey's Life 
of, 187; Lady Chatterton's ex- 
cerpts 187; on authorship, 188; 
his sobriquet of "Der Einzige," 
188. 

Rogers, Samuel, his recommenda- 
tion of Tennyson for poet lau- 
reate, 259. 

Roman authors, 1-28. 

Roscoe, translation of Klopstock's 
"Messiah," 190. 

Rothensteiner, Rev. John, his 
translation from Weber, 206. 

Rousseau, influence on Schiller, 
175; anticipated by Fenelon, 144. 

S. 
Sainte-Beuve, on Montaigne, 136, 

138; on Rabelais, 141, 142. 
Saintsbur3% on Wordsworth, 244. 
Sappho, Pope compared with, 229. 



SALLUST, sketch of, 23-25; Epis- 
tles to Caesar, Jugurthine War, 
Conspiracy of Cataline, 23; Dr. 
Stewart's critique, 23. 

SCHILLER, friendship with 
Goethe, 171; sketch of, 175-179; 
influenced by Rousseau, 175; his 
historical work, 177; literary as- 
sociation with Goethe, 177; 
Goethe's tribute to "Wallen- 
stein," 178; visited by Madame 
de Stael, 178; his triumph at 
Berlin, 178; his imitation of 
Aeschylus and Sophocles, 178; 
admitted to French citizenship, 
177. 

Schlegel, on Kant, 185; translation 
of Shakespeare, 195; of Calderon, 
132. 

Schwegler, Albert, estimate of 
Kant, 186. 

SCOTT, Sir Walter, sketch of, 239- 
242; his Goethe translation, 170; 
translation of Heine, 200; tribute 
to Bj-ron, 238; his translations 
from the German, 239; his obli- 
gation to Cervantes, 242; found- 
er of the historical novel, 239; 
success of his novels, 242; his 
advice to Lockhart, 242. 

Seneca, Corneille's debt to, 149. 

SHAKESPEARE, William, trans- 
lation by Wieland, 195; by 
Schlegel, 195; his debt to Ovid, 
13; his debt to Plutarch, 47; 
his plagiarism of Montaigne, 
138; his injustice to Machiavelli, 
92; sketch of, 209-214; com- 
pared T\dth Lope de Vega, 209; 
his want of scholarship, 209, 
210; compared with Moliere and 
Goethe, 210; secret of his power, 
210; Hudson's view, 211; Emer- 
son and Landor on, 212; his 
characters, 212, 213; Macaulay 
quoted, 213; Hallam on, 213; 
views of Coleridge, Carlyle and 
Blair, 213; Taine on, 214. 



INDEX. 



Slavery, Hugo on, 168. 

Socrates, tributes to, 42. 

Sophocles, imitated by Voltaire, 
160; by Schiller, 178; by Milton, 
223. 

Soubrette, the, created by Cor- 
neille, 149. 

Spanish authors, 101-133. 

SPENSER, Edmund, sketch of, 
215-218; his service in Ireland, 
215, 216; Dean Church's biog- 
raphy quoted, 216; literary style 
of, 216; compared with Ariosto, 
216; Hallam's opinion, 216; Cow- 
ley's debt to, 216; Milton's ac- 
knowledgment, 216; Alexander 
Pope on, 217; Matthew Ar- 
nold and Campbell quoted, 217; 
Maeaulay's criticism, 218; re- 
sembled by Tennyson, 256. 

Stedman, E. C, on Tennyson, 258. 

Stephen, Leslie, on Alexander 
Pope, 230. 

St. Evremont, his praise of Cor- 
neille, 150; opinion of Plutarch, 
46. 

St. Francis of Assisi, Wordsworth 
compared with, 244. 

Surre3^ Earl of, "the English 
Petrarch," 69. 

Swift, Jonathan, friend of Pope, 
230; compared with Rabelais, 
140. 



Taine, H. A., estimate of Goethe, 
169, 173; on Machiavelli, 90; 
comparison of Rabelais and 
Swift, 141; on Shakespeare, 214; 
on Pope, 228, 229; on Byron, 
234, 236; on Tennyson, 256. 

TASSO, Torquato, sketch of, 75- 
79; his Rinaldo, 75; Aminta, 76; 
Gerusalemme Liberata, 76; com- 
pared with Homer, 76; Voltaire's 
opinion, 76; compared with Vir- 
gil, 77; estimates by Lamartine 
and Corniani, 77; his insanity, 



78; Goethe's drama, 78; his 
Gerusalemme Conquistata, 79, 
compared with Ariosto, 81; aided 
by Pope Sixtus V., 78; Byron's 
admiration of, 234. 

Tajdor, Bayard, tribute to Goethe, 
172. 

TENNYSON, Alfred, Weber's 
translation of, 204; poem on 
Lucretius, 15; introduced to 
America by Emerson, 255; Long- 
fellow's appreciation, 256; re- 
semblance to Spenser, 256; Taine 
on, 256; compared with Byron, 
Pope, Wordsworth and Keats, 
258; McCarthy on, 258; Sted- 
man quoted, 258; Whipple on, 
259; Lord Palmerston's ignor- 
ance of, 259; W. Howitt on, 261; 
his debt to Theocritus, 61. 

Thackeray, W. M., on Addison, 
227; estimate of Pope, 228; on 
Dickens, 251. 

THEOCRITUS, sketch of, 60-62; 
Prof. Blair's estimate, 60; father 
of pastoral poetry, 60, 61; Low- 
ell's reference to, 62. 

Tieknor, Hist, of Spanish Lit., 104; 
on the Argensolas, 118; on Vil- 
legas, 121; his estimate of The 
Cid, 127; his opinion of Vicente, 
128. 

Tiraboschi, on Ariosto, 81. 

Tolstoy, his comparison of Dick- 
ens and Balzac, 252. 

U. 

Urfe, Houore de, his "Astree," 61, 

62. 
Ulriei, on "Dogberry," 212. 



Vega (See Lope de Vega). 
VICENTE, sketch of, 128-121; 

father of modern drama, 128; 

views of Tieknor and de Barros, 

128. 



INDEX. 



I 



VILLEGAS, sketch of, 120-121; 
the Spanish Anacreon, 120; opin- 
ion of Bouterwek, 121; his imita- 
tions of Anacreon, Horace, 
Catullus and Petrarch, 121. 

VIRGIL, sketch of, 7-9; aided by 
Maecenas, 7; Georgics, Addison's 
opinion of, 7; his Aeneid, 8; fame 
of, 9; his friendship for Horace, 
4; a disciple of Theocritus, 60; 
Pope's comparison of Tvith Ho- 
mer, 231. 

VOLTAIRE, eulogy of Montes- 
quieu, 146; on Corneille, 149; 
on Racine, 153; imitated Sopho- 
cles, 160; residence in England, 
160; in Germany, 161; visited 
by Goldsmith, 161; his French 
triumph, 162; Macaulay on, 
162; estimate of his literary 
work, 163; his incarceration in 
the Bastile, 160; his financial 
successes, 161; Benjamin Frank- 
lin and, 162; compared with R. 
G. IngersoU, 163; relation to the 
French revolution, 163; contro- 
versy with Alexander Pope, 230; 
his anathema against Shakes- 
peare, 235. 

Vondel, Joost Van den, his relation 
to Milton, 223. 



W. 

War, Goethe's view of, 173. 

Washington, George, Byron's rev- 
erence of, 236; Alfieri's tribute 
to, 98. 

WEBER, F. W., his translation of 
' Tennyson, 204; sketch of, 204- 

208; his "Dreizehnlinden," 205; 
compared with Wordsworth and 
Goethe, 206; Rothensteiner's 
transalation, 206-7. 

Whipple, E. P., his critique on 
Dickens, 253; on Tennyson, 259. 

White, A. D., his comparison of 
Grotius and Machiavelli, 91, 92. 

WIELAND, sketch of, 194-196; 
his debt to Bodmer, 194; com- 
pared with Addison, 195, 196; 
translation of Shakespeare, 195; 
compared with Fenelon, Virgil, 
Cicero and Horace, 196; his 
translations of Greek and Roman 
classics, 195; resembles Mon- 
taigne, 196. 



Xenophon, pupil of Socrates, and 
companion of Plato, 42. 



I 



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